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Fire lookout · Stevens County, Washington

Green Mountain Lookout Site (Stevens County)

Also known as Green Mountain

Stevens County lookout tower dated to 1938 (1934 newspaper items hint earlier), removed or toppled in 1954; footings and ruins remain on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. The tower came down in 1954; ruins and footings remain on the summit.

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. Reached on foot by a route of about 2 miles one way; no closure is described in the sources. Level inferred from the route descriptions, not verified with the Forest Service.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
WillhiteWeb lists a 2-mile one-way hike with about 1,000 ft of gain by the north route, from Highway 20 up South Fork Mill Creek Road.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a tower30-foot pole tower with an L-4 style cabThe design: L-4
Built of
Wood
Built
1938
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,071 ft (1,546 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service (Colville National Forest)
Land
Federal land
Location
Stevens County, Washington
Coordinates
48.63042, −117.60955
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-green-mountain-stevens-county

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 4.3 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 EventA Colville Examiner item describes a crew finishing work at the lookout tower in August 1934; CCC men ran a telephone line up to the station that September.Source: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1938 BuiltRegister, firelookout.com and WillhiteWeb give 1938 for a 30-foot pole L-4 tower; WillhiteWeb says the date is unclear given the 1934 reports.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  3. 1938 First staffedThe lookout man moved into the station in mid-July 1938.Sources: willhiteweb.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  4. No record between 1938 and 1954
  5. 1954 RemovedRegister says removed; WillhiteWeb says toppled; firelookout.com says destroyed. Ruins remain on the summit.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  6. No record between 1954 and 2012
  7. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 16, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  8. 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 Green Mountain lookout stood at the summit of Green Mountain in Stevens County, at about 5,071 feet.1 In July 1938 a large block of timberland, previously administered by the Resettlement Administration, passed to the newly formed Kaniksu National Forest, and the site now sits in the Colville National Forest.2,3

Three sources date the 30-foot pole tower with its L-4 cab to 1938.4,3,1 A 1934 newspaper item, though, describes a crew still finishing work at the lookout tower, and Civilian Conservation Corps men ran a telephone line up to the station that September.2 WillhiteWeb says the 1938 date is unclear in light of those reports.1

The lookout man moved in during mid-July 1938.1,2 The register says the tower was removed in 1954. WillhiteWeb says it was toppled that year, and firelookout.com says it was destroyed.4,1,3

Ruins remain on the summit, according to the register, and WillhiteWeb's photos show footings there.4,1 The views from the summit are limited.1 WillhiteWeb describes the way up as a route from Highway 20 along South Fork Mill Creek Road and then on motorcycle trails, roughly two miles one way with about 1,000 feet of climbing.1

  1. Green Mountain Lookout Site (Stevens Co.), WillhiteWeb.com, https://www.willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/green_mountain/lookout_375.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Green Mountain, Forest Lookouts (Washington), quoting The Colville Examiner, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/green-mountain2.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Green Mtn. Fire Lookout Tower, Firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/greenmtn208.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Green Mountain Lookout Site (Stevens County), Former Fire Lookout Sites register, firetower.org, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/green-mountain-lookout-site-stevens-county/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Green Mountain Lookout site June 1989
Green Mountain Lookout site June 1989 (1989)Photo: Rex Kamstra, 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: 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

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