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Fire lookout · Douglas County, Oregon

Wards Butte Lookout Site

Douglas County site: 1934 40-foot L-4 tower, storm-destroyed 1962 and rebuilt 1963, discontinued 1975; no source describes what remains on the butte today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Destroyed in the October 1962 storm and rebuilt in 1963; discontinued in 1975; tower gone by 1975; parts salvaged 1976; no source describes the site today

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
Type
Cab on a tower40-foot L-4 cab on the 1934 tower; timber tower with ODF cab rebuilt in 1963 (40 or 41 feet by source)The design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1934
Height
40 ft (12.2 m)
Elevation
2,092 ft (638 m)
Agency
Douglas FPA (Douglas County Fire Patrol)
Land
Unknown
Location
Douglas County, Oregon
Coordinates
43.73578, −123.15750
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-wards-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 3.5 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. 1933 EventPlanned as a primary lookout point serving the Eastern and Western Lane County and Douglas County fire patrol associations (The Forest Log, September 1, 1933)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 Built40-foot L-4 lookout tower built; a CCC camp completed a road to the top of the butte in August 1934Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1934 First staffedGeorge Fisher took over the lookout for the remainder of the 1934 fire seasonSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1942 StaffedA woman in charge of the lookout station for the Douglas Forest Protective associationSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1948 StaffedWanda Harden to remain at the lookout for the summer months as a forest fire lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. 1958 AlteredNew aluminum roof put on at a cost of $416.37Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. 1962 DestroyedDestroyed by heavy winds in the Columbus Day storm, October 12, 1962; state restoration funds paid $4,000 of the $5,545 rebuild (see 1963)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  8. 1963 RebuiltReplacement timber tower with cab built at a cost of $5,545, of which $4,000 came from the state restoration fund; 40 feet per Forest Lookouts, 41 feet per firetower.org and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  9. 1975 RemovedLookout discontinued (Forest Lookouts); tower removed by 1975 (firetower.org) or destroyed by 1975 (firelookout.com)Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  10. 1976 MovedLookout dismantled and parts salvaged for the new Mt. Scott lookoutSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  11. No record between 1976 and 2011
  12. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered on the Former Fire Lookout Sites Register as US 932, OR 290Source: firetower.org
  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.

Wards Butte lies in Douglas County, Oregon.1 It sits roughly seven to eight miles southwest of Cottage Grove.2,3 In 1933 a plan called for the butte, in the north end of the county, to become a primary lookout point serving several fire patrol associations.3 In August 1934 a Civilian Conservation Corps camp finished a road to the top and was preparing to build the lookout station.3 The first tower, a 40-foot L-4 cab, was built that year.1,2

People worked the station during the fire season.3 George Fisher took over the lookout for the rest of the 1934 season.3 By 1942 a woman was in charge of the station for the Douglas Forest Protective association, and in 1948 Wanda Harden left for the butte, where she was to remain for the summer as a forest fire lookout.3 In 1958 the station got a new aluminum roof.3

On October 12, 1962, the Columbus Day storm destroyed the lookout.1,2,3 The rebuild cost $5,545, and state restoration funds paid $4,000 of it.3 A new timber tower with a cab went up in 1963.3 Sources give its height as 40 feet or 41 feet.3,1 The lookout was discontinued in 1975, and the tower was gone by then.3,1,2 In 1976 the lookout was taken down, and its parts went into the new Mt. Scott lookout.3

We found no source that describes what remains on the butte today, and we found no information about public access. An old federal survey datasheet from 1940 places a survey marker stamped WARDS 1934 in bedrock about 75 yards southeast of the tower.3 The same datasheet describes a route up a 2.2-mile lookout road and a short trail.3 Nothing we read says whether that road is open now, or whether the marker is still there.

  1. Wards Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/wards-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Wards Butte Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/wardsbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Wards Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/wards-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Wards Butte Lookout Site
Photo: Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source

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Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, dates, photos, links Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.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: 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

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