Deer Ridge Lookout

Forest Road 2540 runs north six miles off Placer Creek Road and ends at the foot of the tower. The drive in leaves Bonners Ferry on Highway 95, follows Meadow Creek Road ten miles to a bridge over the Moyie River, and climbs from there on well-kept gravel. Deer Ridge Lookout stands at 4,755 feet in Boundary County, on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests. The Forest Service puts it 24 miles northeast of Bonners Ferry. Rex Kamstra’s Forest Fire Lookout page puts it at 14.

The tower is treated timber, built in 1965. The Forest Service gives its height as 40 feet, and Kamstra’s page and the National Historic Lookout Register give 41. Idaho Fire Lookouts counts four sets of steep stairs. At the top, a trap door in the wraparound catwalk lifts to let the climber through. The cab is a flat-topped design the Register calls an R-6. It measures 14 by 14 feet by the Forest Service’s figures and 15 by 15 by the Register’s.

A room at the top of the stairs

The cabin rents by the night through Recreation.gov from early June to late September. It holds two twin beds, two chairs, a dresser and a table. Renters enter by combination lock, and the Bonners Ferry Ranger District gives out the numbers ahead of arrival. There is no water. No candle, lantern, or stove may burn inside, so cooking is done outdoors at ground level. The Forest Service suggests bringing a tarp for rain. A notice asks each party to read the lightning safety instructions posted in the cabin when they arrive. The Forest Service lists a pit toilet 50 yards off, and Idaho Fire Lookouts reports two outhouses. Dogs are not allowed. Children are discouraged; in 2006 the Spokesman-Review explained that the cabins and catwalks on the local lookouts stand “high enough to injure or kill if a child falls.”

From the windows the view takes in the Purcell peaks, the Moyie River Valley and Moyie Springs, and the Spokesman-Review added the Selkirks. Elk, deer and black bears range on the ridge, and Idaho Fire Lookouts warns that this is grizzly country. Trails lead out from the lookout along Deer Ridge and Ruby Ridge. Huckleberries come in from August into September. The Moyie below holds rainbow and brook trout. In 1967, the Bonners Ferry Herald reported that Ober Byars of South Gate, California, took a seven-pound, 29-inch rainbow from the river on worms and eight-pound line after a 20-minute fight.

Four towers on one ridge

Cement footings from the earlier lookouts lie scattered around the base of the present tower, and Idaho Fire Lookouts reports that all of them can still be found. The first building, put up in the 1920s, was a gable-roofed cabin with a cupola on top. In 1935 a 20-foot pole tower with an L-4 cab replaced it. In 1949 a 40-foot tower with another L-4 cab replaced that one. Kamstra describes the 1949 tower as pole and the Register as timber. The present tower followed in 1965 and was last used to watch for fire in 1982.

The fire of July 27, 1931

Newspapers in 1931 called the place the Deer Mountain lookout station. They put it in the Pend Oreille National Forest, 20 miles northeast of Bonners Ferry. On July 27 of that year a man-made fire ran through the timber below it. “A high wind was driving the blaze to new heights tonight,” the Montana Butte Standard reported, “after the fire already had spread more than 14 miles in the tinder-dry timber since noon. The Deer mountain lookout station was destroyed by the flames, which licked up the mountainside and now threaten to cross the divide.” The Idaho Evening Times wrote that the station “was burned to the ground.” It reported that the smoke chaser’s cabin on Twin Creek, some miles below, burned as well, along with “the only telephone line into the region.” The Forest Lookouts site, which links to Kamstra’s page, files both reports under Deer Ridge.

Watchers, closures, and a register number

The earliest watcher on record is William Kuntz, in 1933. After the war came Buck Williams in 1946, Lloyd Hughes from 1947 through 1949, Sam Skeels in 1950 and Bill Odell in 1951. Married couples served several seasons: Mr. and Mrs. Vic Walters in 1954, Mr. and Mrs. Burton Baker in 1959, and Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Voll in 1960 and 1961. John Wisch kept the station in 1956 and Ed Schrader in 1958. Tom Black followed in 1963 and Roney Clover in 1964. Roy Etter served in 1965, the year the present tower went up.

Kenneth Eckstein watched from the new tower in 1967, and Ravio Kynnap had the early season of 1969. Idaho Fire Lookouts, drawing on the Former Forest Fire Lookout Registry, lists Daniel Pederson for 1970. Mr. and Mrs. Albert Havilend served in 1972, for the early season according to Idaho Fire Lookouts. The 1975 season was split. Kamstra’s page gives Paula Stueve the early half and Kim Norwood the late half. Idaho Fire Lookouts, citing the Bonners Ferry Herald of August 14, 1975, notes that Stueve moved that August to a new tower on Black Mountain.

After 1982 the tower went into the Forest Service rental program. In its August 31, 2017 issue, the Herald looked back fifteen years to the summer of 2002, when someone vandalized Black Mountain Lookout in early August. More than two dozen large trees around it were cut down. “Someone used a chainsaw to make cuts part way through a main crossbeam of the support structure and on sections of the hand rail on the tower,” said Lynn Kaney, acting district ranger at Bonners Ferry. Renters who had stayed the night made the first report. The Forest Service closed both Black Mountain and Deer Ridge and cancelled their reservations. Its safety officer and facility engineers inspected the two towers and found other safety concerns besides the saw cuts.

In August 2004 the Forest Service and the local community began a major restoration of Deer Ridge. The Bonner County Daily Bee reported on September 29, 2005, that the work had been finished in time for the rental season to open on July 1, 2005. In February 2006 the Spokesman-Review listed the lookout at $25 a night, generally open from mid-June to September 30, with a single twin bed. That same month, the Forest Service rentals moved into a national reservation system.

Gary Weber nominated the tower to the National Historic Lookout Register. It was entered on April 6, 2009, as US 766, Idaho 56.