BlockFrom the record
One of 23 National Register listings published here for Sanders County · listed in 2018 · category: Building · built in 1952.
Sources: the National Register database, National Park Service
Cougar Peak Lookout
Built in 1952. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
The listing
- What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 2 buildingss, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
- Address. Plains / Thompson Falls Ranger District, Lolo NF, Thompson Falls, 59873
- When was it listed? August 2018
- Category. building
- Also known as. L-4 Fire Lookouts in the USFS Northern Region (Region 1), 1932-1967 MPS
- Census division. Thompson Falls-West End
- When was it built? 1952
- National Register reference number. 100002774 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.
Fires near this property
75 since 1992Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 75 fires within 5 miles of Cougar Peak Lookout between 1992 and 2020, burning about 16,391 acres in total. 41 started naturally. 1 was 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 | 41 |
| Debris and open burning | 8 |
| Recreation and ceremony | 6 |
| Railroad operations and maintenance | 6 |
| Missing data/not specified/undetermined | 5 |
| Power generation/transmission/distribution | 4 |
| Smoking | 2 |
| Arson/incendiarism | 1 |
| Misuse of fire by a minor | 1 |
| Equipment and vehicle use | 1 |
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 1995 | Natural | under an acre | Lolo National Forest | SPRING BEAR |
| 24 September 2009 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Kootenai National Forest | FREEZEOUT RIDGE |
| 2 September 2001 | Recreation and ceremony | under an acre | Kootenai National Forest | GRIMEY BEAR |
| 18 September 1998 | Natural | under an acre | Lolo National Forest | EAST THORNE |
| 16 September 2013 | Natural | under an acre | Kootenai National Forest | VERMILION PEAK |
| 14 September 2002 | Smoking | under an acre | Lolo National Forest | COUGAR PEAK |
| 10 September 2007 | Smoking | under an acre | Kootenai National Forest | SPRING CREEK |
| 1 September 2016 | Natural | 2.0 acres | Lolo National Forest | THORNE RIDGE |
Mines and quarries near this property
2 within 5 milesRegional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Cougar Peak Lookout: 1 occurrence, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Silver, Lead, Zinc, Copper, Silver. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colcar Peak Block | Silver, Lead, Zinc | Occurrence | Galena | |
| Jeff Group | Copper, Silver | Producer | Malachite |
Storms near this property
13 since 1993Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Thompson Falls, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 6 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 3 flood, 1 wildfire. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.
| When | Event | Place named | Harm | What the report says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2025 | Flood | Thompson Falls | $100,000 | At approximately 0400MST on December 11, a massive landslide occurred near Eagle View Lane, roughly 2 miles south-southwest of Bull Lake. The debris flow significantly damaged a residential garage, and the residents were unharmed. An Emergency Declaration was issued to address the lowland flooding and debris removal. Highway 56 near Bull Lake was forced to close between mileposts 16.7 and 17.2 after overwhelmed culverts allowed stream overflow to inundate the roadway. The emergency manager reported that over a dozen properties were isolated from Highway 56, either by a foot of water over access bridges or by an approximate 50-yard-wide flow of sediment-laden water separating residences from the main road. |A bridge on Montana Highway 471/Thompson Pass Road, near milepost 15, was washed out by Prospect Creek, resulting in a road closure. Prospect Creek also flooded the Prospect Creek campground at the Wild Coyote, located 7 miles up Prospect from Highway 200. |
| May 1994 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | $50,000 | no account filed |
| May 1993 | Hail | Thompson Falls | $5,000 | no account filed |
| May 1993 | Hail | Thompson Falls | $5,000 | no account filed |
| August 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | $500 | A member of the public reported a strong thunderstorm with heavy rain, lightning gusty winds that moved through between 2 and 3 am MDT. They received 0.75 total rainfall measured. |
| August 2013 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | $500 | A trained spotter reported that the power was out from 0230 to 0645 hrs MDT on August 26th. |
| September 2024 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | - | Widespread power outage in Thompson Falls with up to 4000 thousand customers without power. There was also a downed tree at the bottom of Cherry Creek Road around 7:20pm. |
| May 2018 | Flood | Thompson Falls | - | Low lying areas were flooded by the Clark Fork River between Thompson Falls and Plains. |
| May 2018 | Flood | Thompson Falls | - | The Clark Fork River again reached flood stage and caused flooding of the access road to the sewage lagoons outside of Plains. |
| August 2003 | Wildfire | Thompson Falls | - | no account filed |
| June 2001 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | - | no account filed |
| August 1999 | Thunderstorm Wind | Thompson Falls | - | no account filed |
| August 1999 | Hail | Thompson Falls | - | no account filed |
Map coverage status
No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.
Sources for this property
| National Archives record | The nomination case file for reference 100002774 in Record Group 79. |
| Sanders County | All 23 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.
- Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.