Blacktail Lookout Hit by Lightning Fatality 1931

On June 21, 1931, Glen B. Butler, 23 years old, the lookout at the Blacktail Mountain Lookout on the Pend Oreille National Forest (now included in the the Idaho Panhandle National Forests), was struck and killed by lightning while on duty during a lightning storm. A contemporary newspaper article in the Northern Idaho News reported: "...about 4:30 [he] had called the Sandpoint office and talked to them. He called again about 4:45 and said there was a bad storm brewing and for them not to call him again."

Butler's body was discovered the next day by Forest Service officials who had gone to the Lookout to investigate why Butler wasn't answering the telephone.