Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington
Monumental Mountain Lookout Site (Colville NF)
Also known as Monumental Mountain
Colville NF summit lookout: 1926 detection site, 50-ft L-4 tower from 1939, removed 1958. The brief's Fosback move belongs to a separate Stevens County tower.
- Gone
- Access unknown
- Verified
Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in 1958 per firetower.org and Rex's page; firelookout.com says destroyed. No source read describes it as standing.
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
- Type
- Cab on a towerD-6 cupola cabin (1926), then a 50-ft pole tower with L-4 cab (1939)The designs: L-4, D-6
- Built of
- Not recorded
- Built
- 1926
- Height
- 50 ft (15.2 m)
- Elevation
- 5,700 ft (1,737 m)
- Agency
- Colville National Forest
- Land
- Federal land
- Location
- Pend Oreille County, Washington
- Coordinates
- 48.67706, −117.18384
- Registers
- This entry
- VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
- Firefinder id
us-wa-monumental-mountain-colville-nf
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 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
- 1926 BuiltFirst used as a detection site with a D-6 cupola cabin 600 ft north of the summitSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
- 1930 StaffedNewport Miner item (quoted by Rex's page) names Harry Casselman as lookout on Monumental PeakSource: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1935 EventNewport Miner item describes a road up Harvey Creek to the lookout station and says it will be extendedSource: washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
- 1939 Replaced by a new structure50-ft pole tower with L-4 cab replaced the cupola cabinSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
- No record between 1939 and 1958
- 1958 RemovedFiretower.org and Rex's page say removed; firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
- No record between 1958 and 2012
- 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 17, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
- Date unknown MovedThe lookout was moved to Fosback.Source: FFLA
- 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 (opens another site) (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).
Story
Researched 9 Oct 2026, fact-checked.
The Monumental Mountain lookout site sits in the Colville National Forest in Pend Oreille County, Washington, at 5,700 feet.1,2 The first lookout there came in 1926, when a D-6 cupola cabin stood 600 feet north of the summit and served as a detection site.1,2
A 1930 item from The Newport Miner, quoted on Rex's Fire Lookout Page, reports that Harry Casselman had taken the lookout job on Monumental Peak.3 A 1935 item from the same paper describes a road up Harvey Creek to the lookout station, and says the road would be extended to connect with another road across the divide.3 We found no other staffing record in the sources we read.1,2,3
In 1939 a 50-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab replaced the cupola cabin.1,2
The tower came down in 1958.1,2,3 Firetower.org and Rex's page say it was removed, while firelookout.com says it was destroyed.1,2,3 None of the sources says how it ended.
Do not mix this site up with a different Monumental Mountain tower in Stevens County.4 Rod Fosback bought that one and rebuilt its upper 10 feet on his property east of Colville.4,5
We found no source that describes what remains at the Colville National Forest summit today. Firetower.org gives an elevation and a map location, and says nothing about the ground now.1 Public access is not described anywhere we looked, so expect a site with no tower standing on it.
- Monumental Mountain Lookout Site (Colville NF), Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/monumental-mountain-lookout-site-colville-nf/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Monumental Mtn. Fire Lookout Cabin, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wa/monumentalpo.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Monumental Mountain - FOREST LOOKOUTS, Rex's Fire Lookout Page (washingtonlookouts.weebly.com), https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/monumental-mountain1.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Monumental Mountain Lookout Site (Stevens County), Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/monumental-mountain-lookout-site-stevens-county/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
- Relocated Lookouts - Washington State, WillhiteWeb.com, http://www.willhiteweb.com/washington_fire_lookouts/relocated/locations_462.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
Photos
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Sources
- Former Fire Lookout Sites Register (FFLOS) (opens another site) 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
- Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists (opens another site) 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
- firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page (opens another site) 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
- FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) (opens another site) 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
- Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, height, 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
- FFLOS register entry US 1515 (firetower.org) (opens another site)
- Monumental Mountain Lookout Site (Stevens County) (Former Fire Lookout Sites (firetower.org)) (opens another site)
- Relocated Lookouts - Washington State (WillhiteWeb.com) (opens another site)
- FFLA Washington lookout list (firelookout.org) (opens another site)
- Monumental Mtn. on firelookout.com (Rex Kamstra) (opens another site)
- Monumental Mountain on Forest Lookouts, western US (Ron Kemnow) (opens another site)
Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.