FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Clackamas County, Oregon

West Pinhead Butte Lookout Site

Clackamas County, OR site in Mount Hood NF: crow's nest in 1929, timber tower with L-4 cab by 1933, removed or destroyed in 1950; no source describes the site today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1950 per firetower.org, destroyed that year per firelookout.com; no source describes what remains

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 towerNative timber tower with L-4 cab per the Forest Lookouts page; firetower.org and firelookout.com describe a 20-foot wooden towerThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
20 ft (6.1 m)
Elevation
5,577 ft (1,700 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Clackamas County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.93688, −121.79608
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-west-pinhead-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 3.8 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. 1929 EventTree crow's nest lookout and rag camp set upSource: firetower.org
  2. 1933 BuiltNative timber tower with L-4 cab per Forest Lookouts page; firetower.org dates its replacement tower only to the 1930sSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1936 StaffedStanley Applegate was the lookout in September 1936; no other lookout named in sources readSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1950 RemovedFiretower.org says removed; firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  5. No record between 1950 and 2010
  6. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 21, 2010; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  7. 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.

West Pinhead Butte is in Clackamas County, Oregon, in the Mount Hood National Forest, about 30 miles south of Mount Hood.1,2 A tree crow's nest and a rag camp went up on the butte in 1929.1

The crow's nest and camp were replaced in the 1930s by a 20-foot wooden tower.1 The Forest Lookouts page is the only source we read that gives a year for the tower, 1933, and it describes a native timber tower with an L-4 cab.3

The only lookout we can name is Stanley Applegate, who held the post in September 1936.3 A passage quoted on the Forest Lookouts page, signed A.O. Waha, says he rigged a Zenith wind charger on the lookout roof to run his radio and lights.3 Because the telephone was hard to hear from the ground, he connected it to his radio.3 His job also included cutting up trees that had been felled to improve visibility.3

The sources disagree on how the tower ended. Firetower.org says it was removed in 1950, while firelookout.com says it was destroyed that year.1,2 The Former Fire Lookout Sites Register recorded the site on September 21, 2010.1 A lookout list on firelookout.org marks the tower as gone.4

We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains on the butte today, or whether visitors may go there. Firetower.org carries a 2005 photo of the site, credited to Howard Verschoor, but the page gives no description of the image.1 Check with the Mount Hood National Forest before you go, because we could not confirm access.

  1. West Pinhead Butte Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/west-pinhead-butte-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. West Pinhead Butte Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout, https://www.firelookout.com/or/westpinheadbutte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. West Pinhead Butte, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/west-pinhead-butte.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Oregon lookout list, Fire Lookout, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/or/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

West Pinhead Butte Lookout 1930 - 1950
West Pinhead Butte Lookout 1930 - 1950 (1930)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, via Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (firetower.org) · All rights reserved · source
West Pinhead Butte Lookout site 2005
West Pinhead Butte Lookout site 2005 (2005)Photo: Howard Verschoor, via 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, register numbers, agency, ownership, 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: design, 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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