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Fire lookout · Marion County, Oregon

Whetstone Mountain Lookout Site

Whetstone Mountain lookout, Marion County, OR: 20-ft tower with L-5 cab built 1933-34, gone by 1967 or burned 1968; hike reported closed in 2026.

Closed

The site is closed to visitors. Oregon Hikers marks the hike closed (notice dated August 2026, Austin Fire); the Forest Service trail page lists current wildfire closures on the Willamette National Forest. Not checked against a current closure order.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Gone by 1967 per the register and firelookout.com; Forest Lookouts says the structure was burned in October 1968

Visit & stay

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

Access

Closed. See the warning at the top of this page.

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Trail #3369 climbs toward the summit from both ends. Hike Oregon describes the summit as a flat area where a lookout once stood. No source describes what remains there.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower20-foot wooden tower with an L-5 cab (register)The design: L-5
Built of
Wood
Built
1933
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,969 ft (1,515 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Marion County, Oregon
Coordinates
44.86494, −122.20795
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-whetstone-mountain

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 a typical height for a lookout like it.

Downloads about 3.9 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 BuiltForest Lookouts: 10 by 10 L-5 lookout house constructed by the CCC; Oregon Statesman item from September 1933 describes building under waySource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1934 BuiltRegister: 20-foot wooden tower with L-5 cab built in 1934; firelookout.com gives 1934 for the L-5 cabSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  3. 1934 EventPanorama photos taken by Robert Cooper and Albert Arnst (May 24, 1934)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1934 and 1967
  5. 1967 RemovedGone by 1967 per the register and firelookout.comSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  6. 1968 RemovedForest Lookouts: structure disposed of by burning on October 11, 1968Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  7. No record between 1968 and 2010
  8. 2010 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered September 21, 2010 as US 661, OR 93Source: firetower.org
  9. No record between 2010 and 2026
  10. 2026 ClosedOregon Hikers notice (August 2026): area closed because of the Austin FireSource: oregonhikers.org
  11. 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.

Whetstone Mountain, nine miles north of Detroit in Marion County, Oregon, got a fire lookout in the early 1930s.1,2 The sources disagree on the year. The register gives 1934 for a 20-foot wooden tower with an L-5 cab.1 Firelookout.com also gives 1934 for the L-5 cab.2 Forest Lookouts dates a 10-by-10 L-5 lookout house, built by the CCC, to 1933.3 A September 1933 Oregon Statesman item describes a man building a lookout for the forestry service on the mountain, and names him Cluad Sellard.3 Forest Lookouts logs panorama photos taken by Robert Cooper and Albert Arnst on May 24, 1934.3

The register says the tower was gone by 1967, and firelookout.com gives the same year.1,2 Forest Lookouts instead records that the structure was disposed of by burning on October 11, 1968.3 The sources do not agree on this date.

The Forest Service trail to the mountain, Trail 3369, climbs toward the summit from both ends and follows the ridge.4 That trail runs through an area impacted by the Beachie Creek and Lionshead fires.4 Hike Oregon says the top is broad and level, and that a lookout used to stand there.5

Oregon Hikers marks the hike as closed. Its notice, dated August 2026, says the area is closed because of the Austin Fire, and it points readers to the Forest Service closure order.6 The Forest Service trail page also lists current wildfire closures on the Willamette National Forest.4 We did not read the closure order itself, so the notice may be out of date. Anyone planning a visit should check the closure order first, and stay out while the area is closed.

We found no source that describes what, if anything, remains on the summit today.

  1. Whetstone Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/whetstone-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Whetstone Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/whetstonemtn.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Whetstone Mountain, Forest Lookouts, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/whetstone-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Whetstone Mountain Trail #3369, Willamette National Forest, https://www.fs.usda.gov/r06/willamette/recreation/trails/whetstone-mountain-trail-3369 (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Whetstone Mountain, Hike Oregon, https://www.hikeoregon.net/whetstone-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Whetstone Mountain Hike, Oregon Hikers Field Guide, https://www.oregonhikers.org/field_guide/Whetstone_Mountain_Hike (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Whetstone Mountain Lookout 1958
Whetstone Mountain Lookout 1958 (1958)Photo: Howard Verschoor collection, 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, what it is built of, 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, status, agency, access, visiting details, 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.