Prospect Peak Fire Lookout

Built in 1912. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. 14 historic topographic surveys show this location, the earliest from 1886.

From the record

“The Prospect Peak Fire Lookout is a fire lookout station located on Prospect Peak in Lassen Volcanic National Park, near the city of Mineral, California. The lookout, which was built circa 1912, is one of the oldest extant U.S.”
Wikipedia article Prospect Peak Fire Lookout, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 20 National Register listings published here for Shasta County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · built in 1912.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. NE of Mineral, Mineral
When was it listed? March 1978
Category. building
Census division. Central Shasta
When was it built? 1912
National Register reference number. 78000295 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

79 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 79 fires within 5 miles of Prospect Peak Fire Lookout between 1992 and 2020, burning about 1,834 acres in total. 61 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	61
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Smoking	4
Debris and open burning	4
Equipment and vehicle use	3
Arson/incendiarism	2

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
8 September 2011	Natural	under an acre	Lassen National Forest	WENDY
7 September 2017	Natural	under an acre	Lassen Volcanic National Park	BUTTE
5 September 1996	Natural	under an acre	Lassen Volcanic National Park	PROSPECT
5 September 1996	Natural	under an acre	Lassen Volcanic National Park	PEAK
3 September 1997	Natural	under an acre	Lassen National Forest	GRASS
3 September 1995	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Lassen Volcanic National Park	FAIRFIELD
24 September 1995	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Lassen Volcanic National Park	SPOT
23 September 2008	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Lassen National Forest	CREEK

Every fire recorded in Shasta County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Prospect Peak Fire Lookout: 1 occurrence, 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Gold. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Alice Consolidated Group	Gold	Past Producer	Gold
	Cinder Cones	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Occurrence

Every working recorded in Shasta County

Maps showing this location

14 surveys

United States Geological Survey topographic sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by taking the coordinate the National Park Service records for this property, then testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.

1886 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000
1892 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000
1894 USGS Lassen Peak quadrangle1:250000 - 8 printings
1939 USGS Halls Flat quadrangle1:125000 - 3 printings
1955 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
1957 USGS Prospect Peak quadrangle1:62500 - 3 printings
1958 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
1959 USGS Westwood quadrangle1:250000
1962 USGS Susanville quadrangle1:250000 - 2 printings
1968 USGS Susanville quadrangle1:250000
1975 USGS Prospect Peak SE quadrangle1:24000
1976 USGS Burney quadrangle1:100000 - 3 printings
1985 USGS Prospect Peak quadrangle1:24000
1995 USGS Prospect Peak quadrangle1:24000

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Twin Lakes Fire Tool Cache	4.2 miles	2016
Nobles Emigrant Trail	4.8 miles	1975
Summit Lake Ranger Station	6.7 miles	1978
Horseshoe Lake Ranger Station	7.0 miles	1978

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000295 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Shasta County	All 20 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.