Hornet Lookout

Built in 1922. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

From the record

“Hornet Lookout is a former fire lookout tower located in the Flathead National Forest and is located approximately 45 miles (72 km) north of Columbia Falls, Montana. On August 19, 1983, Hornet Lookout was added to the National Register of Historic Places.”
Wikipedia article Hornet Lookout, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 168 National Register listings published here for Flathead County · listed in 1983 · category: Building · built in 1922.

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. Hornet Mountain, Flathead National Forest, 59928
When was it listed? August 1983
Category. building
Census division. Columbia Falls
When was it built? 1922
National Register reference number. 83001061 - 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

23 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 23 fires within 5 miles of Hornet Lookout between 1993 and 2018, burning about 52,222 acres in total. 19 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	19
Recreation and ceremony	2
Debris and open burning	1
Arson/incendiarism	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
4 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	AKINKOKA
18 September 2009	Natural	670 acres	Flathead National Forest	NINKO
18 September 1998	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	CENTER MOUNTAIN
17 September 1999	Debris and open burning	38 acres	Flathead National Forest	DOOGAN DOG
9 August 2008	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	AKINKOKA
7 August 2000	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	TEEPEE LAKE
25 August 2006	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	TRAIL CREEK
23 August 2007	Natural	under an acre	Flathead National Forest	AKINKOKA

Every fire recorded in Flathead County

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.

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
Billy Kruse Cabin	5.2 miles	2021
Wurtz Homestead	5.7 miles	1996
Ford Schoolhouse	6.1 miles	2022
Kishenehn Ranger Station Historic District	7.0 miles	1986

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 83001061 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Flathead County	All 168 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.