MILLER POINT
Missoula County - Lolo National Forest - 12N-18W-32
September 16, 1930: "Two men were sent to Miller peak by the Missoula forest yesterday to start work on a new lookout building which will cover the Miller creek area. A new tower 20 feet high is to be constructed and living quarters, 14 by 14 feet, will be built for the lookouts to occupy. It is expected to finish this construction work this fall." (The Daily Missoulian)
May 24, 1931: "Building of a new lookout on Miller peak south of here (Missoula) has also been accomplished." (Independent - Helena)
May 30, 1934: "Lookouts were placed Tuesday as a further means of protection, to warn of fires that may break out. C. B. Pitts occupied the Miller peak lookout Tuesday." (The Missoulian)
July 11, 1934: "Stewart Griffiths is occupying the Miller peak lookout southwest of Missoula." (The Missoulian)
July 23, 1937: "A story of the courage of Lewis Phillips of Valentine, a forest school student here, employed as a lookout on Miller peak, came to the Lolo forest offices from the front. His cabin was burned, but Phillips stayed his post on the lookout tower erected on a high pile of rocks adjacent to the cabin. Phillips fire proofed the rock pile and lookout as best he could and clung to his perch through the smoke and flames, after his supplies and bed had been burned in the cabin. The wooden tower so far had resisted the flames and Phillips was on top, scanning the clouds of smoke.
He had instructions by telephone to leave when real danger threatened, but so far was sitting on top of the lookout peak and assisting to the best of his ability in the campaign.
Camp No. 4 (CCC), on the front of the fire, is being supplied by hard-pushed packstrings. The other three camps are on the Miller creek road and are served by trucks." (The Daily Inter Lake)
September 13, 1947: "Miller peak lookout is being dismantled after 16 years of service on its 7,018-foot mountain top 10 air miles southeast of the city, Ranger Otto A. York of the Missoula ranger district reported Friday.
The peak, which is now in the Lolo forest, was in the Bitter Root forest when the lookout was built in 1931. In the summer of 1937 the structure and its 20-foot tower were nearly burned when a fire which swept up from Miller creek stopped only 50 feet from them. Two men were burned to death in the same fire, C.R. Byers assistant supervisor of the Lolo forest, recalls.
The tower lookout now being salvaged was preceded on the mountain by a hut and before this the bare mountain top was used as a lookout for many years." (The Missoulian)