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Fire lookout · Weston County, Wyoming

Mt. Pisgah Lookout Site

Weston County lookout built in 1940-41 and dismantled in 1966; its steel tower went to Seth Bullock Lookout in South Dakota, where sources disagree on what remains.

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.

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 tower45-foot wooden L-4 tower, replaced by 1957 with a 53-foot all-steel live-in tower (firelookout.com)The design: L-4
Built of
Not recorded
Built
1941
Height
Unknown
Elevation
6,403 ft (1,952 m)
Agency
U.S. Forest Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Weston County, Wyoming
Coordinates
43.99470, −104.14327
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 9 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wy-mt-pisgah

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 3.9 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. 1941 BuiltRegister: erected by the CCC in 1941 under foreman Leo Harbaugh. Firelookout.com and a November 1940 item point to 1940.Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, westlookouts.weebly.com
  2. 1941 EventState WPA project approved to build 15 miles of telephone line from the lookout to Newcastle (February 1941)Source: westlookouts.weebly.com
  3. No record between 1941 and 1957
  4. 1957 Replaced by a new structure53-foot all-steel live-in tower listed in place of the 45-foot wooden L-4 towerSource: firelookout.com
  5. 1957 StaffedKnown lookout personnel from 1957 to 1964 (firelookout.com)Source: firelookout.com
  6. 1965 RemovedRegister lists the removal year as 1965Source: firetower.org
  7. 1965 Last staffedRegister: staffed through the 1965 season. Last named lookout LeNora Sundstrom (firelookout.com lists her for 1964).Sources: firetower.org, firelookout.com
  8. 1966 MovedDismantled in September 1966 and moved to Seth Bullock Lookout, South DakotaSources: firetower.org, firelookout.com, firelookout.com
  9. No record between 1966 and 2026
  10. 2026 Added to the Former Fire Lookout Sites RegisterDate registered per FFLOS detail page: January 2, 2026Source: FFLOS register entry
  11. 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.

Mount Pisgah rises in Weston County, Wyoming, about nine miles north-northeast of Newcastle, in the Black Hills National Forest.1,2 A November 1940 newspaper item placed a new station on Mt. Pisgah in what it called the Harney forest.3

The register says the Civilian Conservation Corps erected the first tower in 1941, under a foreman named Leo Harbaugh.1 Firelookout.com instead dates a 45-foot wooden L-4 tower to 1940.2 A February 1941 bulletin reported that a state WPA project had been approved to build 15 miles of telephone line from the lookout to Newcastle.3

By 1957, firelookout.com lists a 53-foot all-steel live-in tower in place of the wooden one.2

The register says the tower was staffed through the 1965 season and names LeNora Sundstrom as the last person to staff it.1 Firelookout.com lists known lookouts from 1957 to 1964, among them Mr. and Mrs. W.D. Cloud in 1957 and Evelyn Sorheim in the early 1960s.2

The register lists the tower as removed in 1965, but the same page quotes the News-Letter Journal in Newcastle from September 15, 1966, saying crews were taking the tower apart to install it at the Seth Bullock site.1 No source describes what, if anything, remains at the Mount Pisgah summit today.

The tower now stands on Scruton Mountain in South Dakota, about 14 miles west-southwest of Rapid City.4,5 Firelookout.com says the 53-foot Pisgah tower was moved there and given an added section, bringing the 1966 tower to 67 feet.4 The register says it still stands at the Seth Bullock site but is not used for fire detection.1 The National Historic Lookout Register, though, dates the current 55-foot open steel tower and cab to 1975, as a replacement for a 1939 wooden tower.5 A Black Hills hiking blog says the tower there was rebuilt after earlier towers were destroyed.6 The sources do not agree on whether any of the Pisgah steel is in the tower standing today.

That tower sits off Edelweiss Mountain Road, southwest of Pactola Lake. The road gate is locked, so a visitor walks about 1.8 miles, and the blog reports no access to the tower itself.6

  1. Mt. Pisgah Lookout Site, Former Fire Lookout Sites register, http://firetower.org/lookouts/us/wy/mt-pisgah-lookout-site/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  2. Mt. Pisgah Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, https://www.firelookout.com/wy/mtpisgah.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  3. Mount Pisgah, Forest Lookouts, westlookouts.weebly.com, https://westlookouts.weebly.com/mount-pisgah.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  4. Seth Bullock Fire Lookout Tower, firelookout.com, http://www.firelookout.com/sd/sethbullock.html (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  5. Seth Bullock Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/sd/seth-bullock-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩
  6. Seth Bullock Lookout Tower, Black Hills Hiking, Biking, and More, https://www.blackhillshikingbikingandmore.com/seth-bullock-lookout-tower (accessed 2026-10-09). ↩

Photos

Pisgah Lookout in 1957
Pisgah Lookout in 1957 (1957)Photo: 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. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, 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

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