Devils Head Lookout

Built in 1951. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.

From the record

“Forest Service fire lookout tower at the summit of Devils Head in Douglas County, Colorado. Located on a large pinnacle of Pikes Peak granite, the fire lookout point lies within the Pike National Forest and is accessed by hiking the Devils Head National Recreation Trail.”
Wikipedia article Devil's Head Lookout, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 24 National Register listings published here for Douglas County · listed in 2003 · category: Site · built in 1951.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service · the Wikipedia article

The listing

Address. South Platte District, Pike National Forest, Sedalia, 80135
When was it listed? June 2003
Category. site
Census division. Sedalia
When was it built? 1951
National Register reference number. 03000518 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

178 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 178 fires within 5 miles of Devils Head Lookout between 1992 and 2020, burning about 4,163 acres in total. 111 started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Natural	111
Recreation and ceremony	28
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	27
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Firearms and explosives use	2
Debris and open burning	2
Arson/incendiarism	2
Smoking	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
9 September 2016	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	TRAIL HEAD
8 September 2009	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	FRED
8 September 2003	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	MARIA
7 September 1993	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	not named
4 September 2016	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	31
3 September 2002	Natural	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	BIRTHDAY
27 September 1993	Equipment and vehicle use	under an acre	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	not named
25 September 2020	Firearms and explosives use	2.0 acres	Pike and San Isabel National Forest	RIM ROAD

Every fire recorded in Douglas County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 33 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 33 workings within 5 miles of Devils Head Lookout: 26 past producers, 3 occurrences, 3 producers, 1 unknown. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Feldspar, Gemstone, REE, Feldspar, Quartz. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
California Quarry	Feldspar, REE, Niobium (Columbium)	Past Producer	Microcline, Pyrochlore
Colorado Mineral Society	Magnesite, Talc-Soapstone	Unknown	1883
Cramer Quarry	Feldspar, REE, Thorium, Uranium	Past Producer	1942, 1951
Devils Head Copper	Copper	Past Producer
Devils Head Pegmatite District	Feldspar, Quartz, Gemstone, Beryllium, REE, Tin, Niobium (Columbium), Thorium	Producer	1930, 1970
Devils Head Prospect	Gemstone, Tin, Feldspar	Past Producer	Surface
Fairplay Placer	Gold, Silver	Past Producer	Placer
Little Anna	Feldspar, Quartz, Mica	Producer	Biotite, Quartz
Little Joe	Stone, Feldspar	Past Producer
Princeton Group	Feldspar, Thorium, REE	Past Producer	1960

Every working recorded in Douglas County

Storms near this property

21 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sedalia, the town this property stands in, in 21 storm reports between 1994 and 2023: 14 hail, 4 lightning, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood. The reports record 1 death and 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
May 2017	Lightning	Sedalia	1 killed, 1 hurt, $5,000	A woman and her horse were killed after they were struck by lightning. A 15-year-old girl also sustained serious injuries and was treated for electrocution.
August 2000	Lightning	Sedalia	$2,000,000	Lightning sparked a blaze which gutted a 10-unit apartment building in Highlands Ranch. Twenty-eight people were left homeless.
May 2009	Lightning	Sedalia	$200,000	no account filed
June 2012	Flash Flood	Sedalia	-	Heavy rain allowed Plum Creek to exceed flood stage by nearly a foot at Sedalia which resulted in lowland flooding.
June 2003	Lightning	Sedalia	-	Lightning blew a hole in the roof of a home in Highlands Ranch. The bolt knocked several holes in the bedroom ceilings and damaged the home's electrical system.
June 1994	Hail	Sedalia	-	Hail up to dime-size covered Interstate 25 south of Sedalia (22 miles south of Denver). Heavy rain caused local flooding on the Interstate.
June 2023	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
June 2023	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Sedalia	-	no account filed
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Sedalia	-	no account filed
June 2005	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
July 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
April 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
August 2003	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
July 2002	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
July 2001	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
August 2000	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed
June 1999	Hail	Sedalia	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Douglas County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

2 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Photograph	Property	Distance	Listed
	John Kinner House	7.7 miles	1974
	Ben Quick Ranch and Fort	7.9 miles	1974

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 03000518 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Douglas County	All 24 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.