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Fire lookout · Deschutes County, Oregon

Wanoga Butte Lookout

Deschutes NF tower built 1932 with an L-4 cab; volunteers dismantled it in July 2006 and the cab went to the High Desert Museum; no source confirms a rebuild or what remains on the butte.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Dismantled July 2006; cab bundled and stored at the High Desert Museum; the planned rebuild is not confirmed by any source read

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent.

Access

Access unknown

We do not know the access rules. Check with the land manager before you go.

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone sources disagree
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 hip-roof cab with catwalk atop a 30-foot pole towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1932
Height
30 ft (9.1 m)
Elevation
4,037 ft (1,231 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Deschutes County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.91390, −121.55536 sources disagree
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-wanoga-butte

View from the cab

What the lookout saw from its cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

This lookout is gone. The view is reconstructed from its recorded site and its recorded height.

Downloads about 3.7 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1932 BuiltTower erected by August 1932 with an L-4 cab (Forest Lookouts newspaper excerpts; NHLR says built 1932). firelookout.com says built in 1933Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1932 First staffedLee Smith named as fireman-lookout in August 1932; a July 1932 report had named Paddy Ryan as the planned lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1933 EventGarage built (NHLR); a garage was under construction in October 1933 per Forest LookoutsSources: nhlr.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1935 StaffedCharles Shaw, lookout, flashed a mirror to a plane during an aerial wild horse roundupSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1948 StaffedW.T. Curtis, lookout-fireman, split duties with the Tumalo Mountain lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1950 MovedGarage moved to Sparks Lake and converted into a cabinSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1953 AlteredOriginal pine tower legs replaced with tamarack (firelookout.com says larch)Sources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. No record between 1953 and 1994
  9. 1994 Condition assessmentEngineering firm inspected the tower; recommended removing the lower stairs; cab beams appeared rottenSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1996 Added to the National Historic Lookout RegisterRegistered on the National Historic Lookout RegisterSource: nhlr.org
  11. 2006 MovedCab bundled and stored at the High Desert Museum south of Bend, pending a planned rebuildSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  12. 2006 RemovedVolunteers dismantled the tower July 10 to 15, 2006; hardware salvaged for future restorationsSources: nhlr.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  13. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Wanoga Butte lies in the Deschutes National Forest, about 16 miles southwest of Bend.1,2 The Forest Service put a lookout on its summit in 1932: an L-4 cab with a hip roof and a catwalk, set on a 30-foot pole tower.1,3 Local papers covered the work that summer.3 A July report named Paddy Ryan as the planned lookout, though another paper called him Pat Ryan.3 By August the man stationed there was Lee Smith, who would have to live in a tent for a month until the house on the tower was ready.3 Bears raided that tent twice in 48 hours.3

In 1953 the original pine legs of the tower were replaced with tamarack.1,3 The garage built in 1933 was hauled to Sparks Lake in 1950 and made into a cabin.1,3 Charles Shaw, a lookout on the butte, helped a pilot find wild horses in a 1935 roundup by flashing a mirror at the plane.3 In 1948 W.T. Curtis split his duties between Wanoga Butte and the Tumalo Mountain lookout.3

In 1994 an engineering firm inspected the tower. It advised taking off the lower stairs to restrict entry, and noted that some cab beams looked rotten.3 In July 2006 a crew of volunteers took the lookout down.1,3 The cab was packed up and stored at the High Desert Museum, south of Bend.1,2 The tower itself was taken apart, and its hardware was set aside for later restorations.1

The plan was to rebuild the cab as a display at the museum once money was raised.3 One fire lookout page says that project had not happened.2 We found no later source confirming a rebuild, so the cab's present condition is unknown. No source we read describes what, if anything, remains on the butte, and we found no information about public access to the site.

  1. Wanoga Butte Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/or/wanoga-butte-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Wanoga Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/wanoga.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Wanoga Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/wanoga-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Wanoga Butte Lookout - 2006
Wanoga Butte Lookout - 2006 (2006)Photo: Ron Kemnow, via National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Where sources disagree

We show disagreements between sources instead of quietly picking one. If you know which is right, please tell us.

  • Sources disagree on the location by 18 km (11 mi).

    • FFLA: 43.91390, −121.55536
    • NHLR: 43.96617, −121.34330

    They share a register number.

    The map uses the position from FFLA.

  • Sources disagree on whether it still stands.

    • FFLA: Gone
    • NHLR: Standing
    • firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page: Gone

    NHLR lists lookouts that were standing when registered. firelookout.com lists it, but not on its map of standing lookouts.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: location, type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: height, links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, status, agency, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.