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Fire lookout · Pend Oreille County, Washington

Slate Creek Lookout

Also known as Slate Creek (Lead Hill)

Slate Creek (Lead Hill) L-4 lookout, built 1931 and removed in the 1950s; WillhiteWeb photos show a lookout footing on the summit.

Gone: The lookout no longer stands. Only the site is left. Removed in the 1950s per FFLOS and WillhiteWeb; firelookout.com says destroyed. A lookout footing is shown on the summit in WillhiteWeb photos.

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. Walk-in access: the road is gated at the highway April 1 to June 30, and a locked gate sits about 7 miles up. No closure order found in the sources read.

Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
WillhiteWeb lists 2.5 miles one way and 1,100 feet of gain, mostly easy road walking past the locked gate.

Facts

Status
Gone
Type
Cab on a towerL-4 cab (FFLOS calls it an L-4 tower)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1931
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,474 ft (1,669 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pend Oreille County, Washington
Coordinates
48.97683, −117.19568
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-slate-creek

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 4.5 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. 1931 BuiltL-4 design; FFLOS calls it a tower, WillhiteWeb calls it a cabSources: firetower.org, willhiteweb.com
  2. 1932 StaffedWayne Myers named as the lookout person, per a 1932 Metaline Falls News itemSources: willhiteweb.com, washingtonlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1932 and 1950
  4. 1950 RemovedSources give only 'the 1950s'; 1950 is a placeholder for that decade. firelookout.com says destroyedSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, willhiteweb.com
  5. No record between 1950 and 2012
  6. 2012 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: December 17, 2012Source: FFLOS register entry
  7. 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.

Slate Creek's lookout stood on Lead Hill, in the Colville National Forest, about 11 miles northeast of Metaline Falls in Pend Oreille County.1,2,3 The summit sits at 5,474 feet.1

A lookout went up on the summit in 1931, built to the L-4 design.1,3 The sources disagree on what kind of structure it was. The Former Fire Lookout Sites register calls it a tower, while WillhiteWeb calls it a cab.1,3

The sources name one person who worked the lookout, and only for 1932. A Metaline Falls newspaper item from that year, quoted by two of the sources, placed Wayne Myers on a lookout job on what the paper called the Kaniksu forest, stationed just above the Leadhill camp on Slate Creek.3,4

The register and WillhiteWeb both say the lookout was removed in the 1950s.1,3 Fire Lookout's page says it was destroyed in that decade instead, so the sources do not agree on how it ended.2

The only remains the sources describe are a lookout footing set beside a tree on the summit, shown in WillhiteWeb's photos. The page describes conditions as of 2024.3

Getting there means a walk past gates. The signed Slate Creek Road leaves Highway 31 north of Metaline Falls.3 A gate at the highway blocks the road from April 1 to June 30. From July, you can drive about 7 miles before a locked gate.3 Past the gate, WillhiteWeb calls the route easy road walking. It lists the hike at 2.5 miles one way, with 1,100 feet of climbing.3

  1. Slate Creek Lookout, Former Fire Lookout Sites, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wa/slate-creek-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Slate Creek Fire Lookout Tower, Fire Lookout (firelookout.com), https://www.firelookout.com/wa/slatecreek.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Slate Creek Lookout Site (Lead Hill), WillhiteWeb.com, http://willhiteweb.com/fire_lookouts/slate_creek_lookout/lead_hill_216.htm (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Slate Creek - Forest Lookouts, Washington Forest Lookouts, https://washingtonlookouts.weebly.com/slate-creek.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. 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, 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

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