Gold Butte Lookout

A multi-award-winning project

To date, Gold Butte Lookout stands as perhaps the Sand Mountain Society’s most ambitious and acclaimed restoration project. Once on the brink of collapse from carpenter ant-infested framing, the 1934-constructed structure was painstakingly catalogued, disassembled, and rebuilt between the years of 1999 and 2008 through a partnership with the U.S. Forest Service—a partnership engineered by lookout preservationist Ron Johnson, and one that was ultimately dedicated to his memory. 

More than fifty volunteers contributed thousands of hours to salvaging and restoring the original materials, culminating in a project that earned the Forest Service’s national “Windows on the Past Award” (2007) as well as the State of Oregon’s “Heritage Excellence Award” (2014), given by the State Historic Preservation Office.

All of the volunteers, contactors, and USFS officials who supported this project collaborated to ensure Gold Butte’s survival as a living testament to Oregon’s fire lookout heritage.

A very popular rental enjoyed by many

Now a popular rental that is literally booked every night it is available, Gold Butte is a classic lower elevation lookout on the west slope of the Oregon Cascade Range, and represents what at one time were a large number of lower elevation sites watching over specific drainages: in this case, the Breitenbush River drainage east of Detroit, Oregon. Abandoned as a regularly-staffed lookout in the early 1970s, Gold Butte served as one of the last two lookouts on the District, and is still used today during active lightning storms. 

The USDA Forest Service placed a plaque on the side of the firefinder stand honoring the SMS volunteers who each donated over 1,000 hours to the restoration, including one former Director (Tim Nidever) and three present-day Directors (Don Allen III, Bill Joy, and Rob Hoeye).

Gold Butte’s family connections

This was the first project joined by Rob Hoeye, who has become a mainstay of the SMS. Rob had provided the spark to the project by writing to the local North Santiam Historical Society asking if they were willing to do anything to save Gold Butte. Cara Kelly, then Detroit Ranger District Archaeologist, was a member of the local HIstorical Society and she responded. Rob’s father, W.D. “Bill” Hoeye, then of Mill City, had staffed the lookout in 1959 when Rob was a toddler. W.D. Hoeye later served as an instructor of woodworking at Oregon State University. As a younger person, Rob assisted his father on projects for many hours and is well-known for being a “human level” when feeding lumber on and off of woodworking equipment, as well as for his ability to make clever custom jigs, even using crude tools in the field. Both talents he learned while assisting his father.

Wyman Delos Hoeye was a founder of the North Santiam Historical Society. He got the nickname “Bill” when it was assumed the “W” in W.D. stood for William. W.D. Hoeye was excited to know his son was participating in the restoration of the lookout at Gold Butte that meant so much to him. He passed away at the age of 90 in 2006, just a year before the dedication. 

Going the extra mille… and then some!

While the SMS was able to restore the original bed, woodbox, and firefinder stand, a replica desk and kitchen cabinet were reproduced from architectural drawings. The beautifully restored lookout enjoyed a nice dedication ceremony in 2007, but work actually continued through the field season of 2008 when two outbuildings were completed: a replica woodshed and outhouse. The woodshed was constructed based on Hoeye family Viewmaster photos taken in 1959 and was constructed using a mix of especially meaningful recycled materials, including shiplap siding salvaged from both the Hoeye family home in Mill City, as well as a shiplap given to Don Allen III in the early 1990s from a remodeling project in Ron Johnson’s home in Oakridge, Oregon.

The replica outhouse was completed in the original location from recycled materials (mostly derived from nearby Sisi Butte Lookout on the Mt. Hood National Forest, a building quickly disassembled by Don Allen III, Bill Joy, and Carl Munz in 2002). Materials salvaged from Sisi Lookout were also used to replace flooring in Gold Butte Lookout that was too damaged to re-use.

This was a project largely influenced by the tutelage of Pete Cecil, a historic preservation expert from Bend, Oregon who was at one time a USFS “Master Performer” in traditional skills, and a member of the short-lived but prolific Region 6 Historic Preservation Team. 

A very important participant happened along…

Much of the final work benefitted from the experience and devotion of Bruce Hake, who happened upon the project during a hike. A longtime mason and framer who worked mostly on the Northern Oregon coast, Bruce was especially active in 2005-2008, re-constructing the beautiful stone foundation for the outhouse, and framing that building, as well as the woodshed. Bruce has also figured prominently in work to maintain the structure in subsequent years.

After learning our lesson at Pearsoll Peak, SMS does regular checks and any major maintenance when projects are complete… but 2020 was unique.

After twelve years of rental, a major maintenance effort was begun at Gold Butte Lookout in the summer of 2020. Sand Mountain Society had a carpentry crew up there including Bruce Hake, Don Allen III, Rob Hoeye, and Bill Joy when two nearby fires (Lionshead and Beachie Creek Fires) exploded during an extreme east wind event. Thanks to Rob having a radio with the NOAA weather forecast, the crew knew the day before of the anticipated “historic wind event” forecast for the next day. In the morning they got up early in an effort to finish repairing and re-installing shutters in order to better protect the building. In dramatic winds, the crew finished work and returned to the trailhead where fir needles rained down on them like snow and treetops bent to and fro in the extreme winds. As quickly as possible the group abandoned the trailhead and fortunately got to the pavement before trees started coming down. A tree on the 46 Road was being cut out by USFS personnel, and another came down and blocked Highway 22 near Niagara, which was moved off the road by a large group of people trapped behind it. Less than 12 hours later, the fires overran much of their exit path.

In the aftermath of two fires, another maintenance cycle is protracted, and extra work generated

Gold Butte was fortunate enough to survive the Beachie Creek and Lionshead Fires, but the ensuing closure area kept work from resuming in 2021. In the following year, the Bull Fire further closed the area and Gold Butte Lookout was again wrapped in a structure blanket. The continued maintenance of the lookout was pushed out to 2024, and by then the workload had increased. After having two structure blankets installed and roughly removed, numerous roof shingles were damaged, resulting in the need for a new roof on two sides in 2024. Numerous additional repairs were resumed and the building and floor repainted. A complete exterior paint job was completed in July 2025 and the lookout put back in the rental program after a lengthy fire-related hiatus.

FUN FACTS – Many local connections:

In 1959, when Rob Hoeye’s father staffed Gold Butte, Don Allen, Jr (Don Allen IIIs father) staffed nearby Bull of the Woods Lookout just a few miles north on the Mt. Hood National Forest. 

Longtime Director, Bill Joy, one of those with the largest number of volunteer hours working on the Gold Butte project, got his first job on fire crew on Detroit Ranger District. While working on that crew, Bill was assigned to the Peggy Creek Fire just south of Sand Mountain in 1967. The lookout at Sand Mountain at that time was Don Allen, Jr., and Don Allen III (age 4) was watching the Peggy Creek Fire. In 1984, Don Allen III also got his first USFS job on fire crew at Detroit Ranger District after offering to volunteer at Gold Butte Lookout. While on fire crew at Detroit, Bill Joy was sent with a crew to remove the lightning protection hardware and phone line from Henline Mountain Lookout in the North Santiam drainage, in advance of other personnel burning that building down a few weeks later. This experience influenced Bill’s desire to save lookouts later in his life. 

Director Linn Davis’ father also worked a summer at Bull of the Woods, and was one of the last paid staffers of the lookout in about 1980.

After all these parallels, Don and Bill met on the USFS radio when Bill served as the volunteer staffer at Waldo Mountain Lookout while Don III was staffing Coffin Mountain Lookout in 1986. Don III and Don Jr hiked in to visit Bill Joy at Waldo Mountain Lookout that year, and a durable friendship began. In 1989, Don III and Bill Joy disassembled Whisky Peak Lookout by themselves, mostly led by Bill.

In 2005, Don Allen III co-led a Passport in Time project with Rick McClure to stabilize Bull of the Woods Lookout, where Bill Joy and Rob Hoeye participated.  

In 2023, all five of these people: Rick McClure, Don Allen III, Rob Hoeye, Bill Joy, and Linn Davis all formed a USFS-approved SMS effort to salvage whatever material could be re-used from the burned Bull of the Woods Lookout.