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Fire lookout · Lake County, Oregon

Willow Point Lookout Site

Lake County, OR 25-ft L-4 tower; sources give 1933 or 1940 as the build year; replaced by a Crane Mountain tower in 1952 and gone by 1953.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Tower came down in 1953 (destroyed per the register and firelookout.com; removed per the Oregon lookouts site) after a 1952 replacement on Crane Mountain; 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. No source read says whether the site is open to the public

Road to the top?
Unknown

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower25-foot L-4 trestle-type tower with 3 rows of 3 legs, L-4 cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1933
Height
25 ft (7.6 m)
Elevation
7,515 ft (2,291 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Fremont National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Lake County, Oregon
Coordinates
42.07737, −120.22607
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-or-willow-point

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 3.6 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 EventMaterial for the lookout reported as already purchased in a Lake County Examiner item dated November 24, 1932 (quoted by the Oregon lookouts site)Source: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1933 Built25-foot timber trestle tower with L-4 cab completed (Oregon lookouts site). Register and firelookout.com give 1940 instead; see resolved_conflictsSource: oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1940 EventRegister and firelookout.com date the tower to 1940; the Oregon lookouts site says the lookout was established as a fire-weather station that year, with observations phoned to the Lakeview Ranger StationSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1952 Replaced by a new structureNew 10-foot tower on Crane Mountain, about one mile west, replaced the Willow Point lookout; the garage moved to the new siteSources: firetower.org, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  5. 1953 DestroyedRegister and firelookout.com say destroyed; Oregon lookouts site says 'The tower removed.'Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, oregonlookouts.weebly.com
  6. No record between 1953 and 1972
  7. 1972 EventRegister says 'It was removed in 1972'; firelookout.com says 'It was destroyed in 1972'. Neither names the structureSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. No record between 1972 and 2011
  9. 2011 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: June 12, 2011Source: FFLOS register entry
  10. 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.

The Willow Point site lies in the Fremont National Forest in Lake County, about 10 miles southeast of Lakeview.1,2 An earlier 20-foot wooden tower and ground cabin came first, in the 1930s.1

Sources do not agree on when the 25-foot L-4 tower went up.1,2,3 The register and firelookout.com date it to 1940.1,2 The Oregon lookouts site says the material had been bought by November 24, 1932, and that the tower was completed in 1933.3

In 1940 the lookout became a fire-weather station. Observations were taken at 8 a.m., noon and 4:30 p.m., and the readings were phoned to the Lakeview Ranger Station at 4:30 each day.3

In 1952 a new 10-foot tower went up on Crane Mountain, about a mile west. It replaced the Willow Point lookout, and the garage was moved there.1,4,3

The Willow Point tower came down in 1953. The register and firelookout.com say it was destroyed, and the Oregon lookouts site says it was removed.1,2,3 The register also gives a removal date of 1972 without saying what came down, and firelookout.com says destruction came in 1972 without naming the structure.1,2

None of the sources I read describes what, if anything, is left at the Willow Point site today, or whether the public can reach it.1,2,3

  1. Willow Point Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/or/willow-point-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Willow Point Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/or/willowpoint.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Willow Point - FOREST LOOKOUTS, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/willow-point.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Crane Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, oregonlookouts.weebly.com, https://oregonlookouts.weebly.com/crane-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Photo of Willow Point 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, 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, 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, access, 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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