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Fire lookout · Stevens County, Washington

Abercrombie Mountain Lookout Site

Colville NF, Stevens County, WA summit; a camp from 1934, an L-4 tower of 1952 or 1938 that was removed or destroyed in the 1960s, and a hiking trail to the summit today.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left.

Visit & stay

Gone: site only. The lookout no longer stands, so there is nothing to climb or rent. You may still be able to visit the site.

Access

Open to the public. Hikers reach the summit on Forest Service trail 117 (the guide gives 3.5 miles) from a small trailhead at the end of road 300; the road is single lane with ruts and is passable by passenger car, barely

Road to the top?
Unknown
Trail
Forest Service trail 117, which the guide gives as 3.5 miles, begins at a small trailhead at the end of road 300. The tower is gone, so there is nothing to climb.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab tower; FFLOS and Willhite say 20 feet (built 1952), FireLookout.com says 30 feet (1938)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
7,308 ft (2,228 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Stevens County, Washington
Coordinates
48.92833, −117.45980
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-abercrombie-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 4.1 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. 1934 EventStarted as a fire lookout camp on the peakSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  2. 1938 BuiltFireLookout.com lists a 30-foot L-4 tower in 1938. A 1938 newspaper reports a carpenter working on a Forest Service lookout station that year; the sources do not say it was finished.Sources: firelookout.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. 1944 StaffedThe Wagoner family staffed the lookout for the 1944 season, per Spokane Chronicle reportsSource: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. 1952 Built20-foot L-4 tower built, per the FFLOS record and the Willhite climbing guideSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  5. No record between 1952 and 2012
  6. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterRegistered November 23, 2012 as US 1482, WA 382; nominated by Ray KresekSource: firetower.org
  7. TodayGoneThe lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. When it came down is not recorded.

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.

Abercrombie Mountain sits in the Colville National Forest, in Stevens County, Washington.1,2 A lookout camp was started on the peak in 1934, and the Former Fire Lookout Sites register lists the U.S. Forest Service as its administrator.1

Sources disagree on the first tower. FireLookout.com lists a 30-foot L-4 tower in 1938.2 The Former Fire Lookout Sites register and a climbing guide both describe a 20-foot L-4 tower built in 1952, and the guide says it was removed in the 1960s.1,3 A 1938 newspaper report also describes a carpenter at work on a Forest Service lookout station that year.4

A family named Wagoner staffed the lookout in the summer of 1944.4 Spokane Chronicle reports say the Wagoners would act as lookouts on the mountain, and that a man with the same surname spent the summer on the lookout.4 We found no later staffing history in the sources.

The tower is gone. The register and the climbing guide say it was removed, while FireLookout.com says it was destroyed in the 1960s.1,3,2

Today the summit is a hiking destination. Forest Service trail 117 starts at a small trailhead at the end of road 300, which the guide describes as single lane and passable by passenger car, though barely. The guide gives the trail's distance as 3.5 miles.3 The climbing guide says the peak is popular with people climbing county high points and prominence peaks.3 A photo caption on the guide's page points to stairs at the footings, which the author believes predate the 1952 tower.3 We found no source that describes the remains in more detail.

  1. Abercrombie Mountain Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/abercrombie-mountain-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Abercrombie Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, FireLookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/abercrombie.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Abercrombie Mountain, Washington Hiking & Climbing, http://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_climbing/colville_national_forest/abercrombie_mountain_washington_117.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Abercrombie Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Forest Lookouts (washingtonlookouts.weebly.com), https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/abercrombie-mountain.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Abercrombie Mountain Lookout Site
Abercrombie Mountain Lookout SitePhoto: Andrea Crawford, 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: 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. WillhiteWeb.com: Washington Fire Lookouts Gave us: links WillhiteWeb.com · No licence stated; names and page links only (the site's photos and text are not reproduced). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  6. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, agency, access, staffing, 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.