FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Columbia County, Washington

Jumpoff Joe Lookout Site

Columbia County, WA: L-4 tower built 1937 on the Umatilla NF; now gone and listed as removed. The mapped site is disputed and no remains have been found.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed; no remnants of the lookout have been found

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 towerL-4 tower (1937)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1937
Height
Unknown
Elevation
4,231 ft (1,290 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Columbia County, Washington
Coordinates
46.26960, −117.63380
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-jumpoff-joe

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. 1937 BuiltL-4 tower built in 1937 (register) with an L-4 cab (Willhite)Sources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  2. No record between 1937 and 2012
  3. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 17, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  4. 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.

Jumpoff Joe was an L-4 lookout tower in Columbia County, Washington, on the Umatilla National Forest. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register dates it to 1937.1,2 The Forest Service administered it, and the register gives its elevation as 4,231 feet.1

Where it stood is uncertain. Willhite says the location has been guessed at many times in the past, and that the mapped point still needs a visit.2 He also cites a 1963 survey note reporting a 90-foot tower at the Abels benchmark, and suggests that spot may be the real site.2 We found no confirmation of that, so this story uses the mapped point.

The lookout is gone. The register says the tower is gone, and a Forest Lookouts listing marks it as removed.1,3 Willhite reports no trace of the lookout on the ground, and says no images of it have been located.2 No source we read describes what, if anything, is left on the ground today.

No source describes public access to the site, so check with the Umatilla National Forest before going near it.

  1. Jumpoff Joe Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites Register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/jumpoff-joe-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Jumpoff Joe Lookout Site, WillhiteWeb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/jumpoff_joe_lookout/tower_230.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Jumpoff joe, Forest Lookouts, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/jumpoff-joe.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Sources

  1. Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, 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. 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
  4. 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
  5. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.