Diamond Butte Lookout

The cab on Diamond Butte

The road ends at a gate. Diamond Butte Lookout Road, which the Forest Service also numbers Forest Trail 4001, runs a mile east from the Sonnette Divide Road and stops 200 feet below the lookout. There is parking at the gate and an outhouse, which recreation.gov calls a pit toilet and the Southeast Montana tourism listing calls a vault toilet. The last stretch is on foot, up a steep hill. A wagon kept in the lookout’s basement carries gear from the gate to the top.

The lookout stands on Diamond Butte in the Custer Gallatin National Forest, about 40 miles from Ashland, under the Ashland Ranger District. The Forest Service describes it as perched atop a 30-foot masonry tower at 4,245 feet. The National Historic Lookout Register describes an R-6 flat cab on a 10-foot concrete base. The register gives the elevation as 4,291 feet, places the lookout in Powder River County, and lists the Forest Service and the BLM as its administrators.

The cab sleeps four. Recreation.gov lists a table, chairs, a twin bed with mattress, a double futon and a cot; the tourism listing counts three beds. Propane runs a cook stove with an oven, the lights and a heater, and the tourism listing adds a propane refrigerator. A few cooking and eating utensils are provided, with a broom, a mop and a bucket. There is no electricity and no water. Guests carry in water for drinking, cooking and washing, along with their own bedding, lanterns, matches, towels and ice chest. Food, coolers and trash stay inside the lookout, and the posted notices give black bears as the reason. Renters clean the cab and pack out their trash. Before the stay they get a combination by phone from the district office.

Toward the Bighorns

From the windows the view runs over the near hills to the Bighorn Mountains, about 100 miles off. The Forest Service points to sunrises, sunsets and stargazing on clear nights. Little grows on the butte except sagebrush and lupin. Fox, black bear, antelope and a variety of birds live in the country around it, and hikers, horseback riders, mountain bikers, off-road riders and hunters all use the surrounding forest.

From Yeager Butte, 1958

The lookout first stood somewhere else. The Forest Service says it was moved from its original site on Yeager Butte in 1958. The register spells the name Yager Butte and says the lookout was established that year with a cabin moved from there. The register dates the standing structure to 1970.

By the Forest Service’s account, Diamond Butte served as an active fire lookout until 2001. The same Forest Service page also says the lookout is closed June through September, when it is used as an active fire lookout for the Ashland Ranger District. It rents only from September to June, for up to four nights at $45 a night.

On April 12, 2022, the lookout entered the National Historic Lookout Register as US 1529, MT 92, nominated by Kyle Stetler.