Sourdough Mountain Lookout

Built in 1933. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

From the record

“The Sourdough Mountain Lookout is a fire lookout that was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1933. Constructed atop Sourdough Mountain in North Cascades National Park, in the U.S. state of Washington, the lookout was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.”
Wikipedia article Sourdough Mountain Lookout, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 74 National Register listings published here for Whatcom County · listed in 1989 · category: Building · built in 1933, by Civilian Conservation Corps.

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. On Sourdough Mountain, 5 mi. NE of Diablo, Diablo, 98283
When was it listed? February 1989
Category. building
Also known as. North Cascades National Park Service Complex MRA
Census division. East Whatcom
When was it built? 1933
Architect. Civilian Conservation Corps
National Register reference number. 88003449 - 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

56 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 56 fires within 5 miles of Sourdough Mountain Lookout between 1992 and 2019, burning about 2,667 acres in total. 28 started naturally. None 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	28
Recreation and ceremony	22
Fireworks	2
Smoking	2
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Debris and open burning	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
9 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	North Cascades National Park	WEE
8 September 2019	Natural	2.0 acres	North Cascades National Park	OVERLOOK
7 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	North Cascades National Park	SOURDOUGH STRIKE
4 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	North Cascades National Park	SOURDOUGH
4 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Ross Lake National Recreation Area	ROLAND CREEK
23 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Ross Lake National Recreation Area	COLONIAL CREEK
20 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	North Cascades National Park	MAY CREEK
1 September 1994	Natural	under an acre	North Cascades National Park	PYRAMID RG

Every fire recorded in Whatcom County

Mines and quarries near this property

6 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 6 workings within 5 miles of Sourdough Mountain Lookout: 3 occurrences, 2 past producers, 1 unknown. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Gold, Chromium, Strontium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
H.B. Brown Claim	Strontium	Occurrence
Diablo	Chromium	Unknown
Diablo Claim	Chromium	Occurrence	Chromite
Scougale Placer	Gold	Occurrence
Scougale Placer	Gold	Past Producer	Stream Placer
Scougale Placer	Gold	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Whatcom County

Storms near this property

1 since 2010

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Diablo, the town this property stands in, in 1 storm report in 2010: 1 flood. 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 2010	Flood	Diablo	$100,000	Parts of Highway 20 between Newhalem and Diablo were washed away by heavy rain and flooding.

Every storm recorded in Whatcom 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

5 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
Diablo Hydroelectric Power Plant	2.3 miles	1989
Skagit River and Newhalem Creek Hydroelectric Projects (Boundary Increase)	3.8 miles	2011
Skagit River and Newhalem Creek Hydroelectric Projects	5.2 miles	1996
Devil's Corner Cliff Walk	6.3 miles	1974
Gorge Hydroelectric Power Plants	6.5 miles	1989

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 88003449 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Whatcom County	All 74 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.