Photograph of Beecher Island — Photograph by Earl Alonzo Brininstool, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Beecher Island Battleground

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

From the record

“Beecher Island is a sandbar located along the lower course of the Arikaree River, a tributary of the North Fork of the Republican River near Wray in Yuma County, Colorado. The site is notable for having been the scene of an 1868 armed conflict between elements of the United States Army and several of the Plains Indian tribes.”
Wikipedia article Beecher Island, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 5 National Register listings published here for Yuma County · listed in 1976 · category: Site.

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

The listing

Address. 16.5 mi. SE of Wray on Beecher Rd., Wray, 80735
When was it listed? October 1976
Category. site
Census division. Wray
National Register reference number. 76000569 - 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

5 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 5 fires within 5 miles of Beecher Island Battleground between 1994 and 2016, burning about 150 acres in total. 1 started naturally. None was 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Natural	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
27 August 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wray Volunteer Fire Department (Yuma County Fire Protection District)	UNKNOWN
24 August 1994	Natural	100 acres	Yuma County	not named
24 June 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wray Volunteer Fire Department (Yuma County Fire Protection District)	UNKNOWN
11 June 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	50 acres	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	WRAY
28 January 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	WRAY

Every fire recorded in Yuma County

Mines and quarries near this property

3 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 3 workings within 5 miles of Beecher Island Battleground: 2 past producers, 1 occurrence. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Unk	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence	Gravel
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Yuma County

Storms near this property

60 of 206 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Wray, the town this property stands in, in 206 storm reports between 1993 and 2025: 154 hail, 37 thunderstorm wind, 7 tornado, 6 flash flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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
June 1998	Hail	Wray	$50,000	Baseball size hail broke windows and windshields.
May 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$20,000	Picked up northwest corner of house roof and dropped it again, breaking four roof trusses. Healthy 12 inch diameter honey locus tree 25 feet tall nearby was uprooted.
May 2005	Hail	Wray	$6,000	Car damage reported to be $6,000.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$5,500	As the line of storms moved over the location, 1 inch in diameter tree limbs were snapped off trees and a few shingles blown off the roof of a home.
July 2022	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$2,000	Pictures of an un-anchored hay shed flipped and thrown about 100 yards due to wind. Estimated size of the barn is 12X20 feet. Speed is estimated based on nearby measured gusts and the building that was thrown.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$1,000	A large cottonwood tree was toppled.
July 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$1,000	Trained spotter reported a 6-inch live tree branch broken off and several power poles leaning over as a result of the wind gust.
August 2007	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$1,000	Two power poles blown down in town of Wray.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$300	Large tree limbs, estimated 4 to 6 inches in diameter, reported down as the line of storms move over the location.
April 2009	Hail	Wray	$250	A trained spotter reported golf ball sized hail broke a window.
July 2023	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	$10	Tree branches reported down due to thunderstorm wind gusts in Wray, CO.
May 2025	Hail	Wray	-	A social media report of quarter size hail in Wray.
May 2025	Hail	Wray	-	Quarter size hail was in reported in Wray by the public. This was with a second round of storms that moved through the area.
June 2025	Hail	Wray	-	Quarter sized hail reported on the east side of Wray.
June 2025	Hail	Wray	-	Numerous reports of hail around half dollar size in Wray throughout a 12 minute span.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	KCOWRAY on WeatherUnderground reported the gust.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	A Spotter Network report of 60 mph wind gust via a handheld anemometer.
July 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	The mesonet site KCOWray25 reported the wind gust.
May 2024	Hail	Wray	-	Multiple reports of hail in the city of Wray over a duration of eight minutes. Hail ranged in size from penny to quarter.
May 2024	Hail	Wray	-	Pea to quarter sized hail fell over the location.
May 2024	Hail	Wray	-	The public reported nickel sized hail in Wray.
May 2024	Hail	Wray	-	Multiple public reports from Wray of hail from 1-1.75 inches across a 25 minute period.
May 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	Report of estimated 70 mph wind gusts on Hwy 385 approx. 3.5 to 1.5 miles south of Hwy 34 in Wray.
May 2023	Hail	Wray	-	Wray law enforcement reported baseball sized hail.
May 2023	Hail	Wray	-	Hail up to two inches in diameter fell over the location.
June 2023	Hail	Wray	-	Report of nickel sized hail 3 miles west of Wray, CO.
July 2022	Hail	Wray	-	Most of the hail was smaller, with a mixture of half to three quarter inch hailstones.
July 2022	Hail	Wray	-	Received a photo of hail slightly smaller than a tennis ball.
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	Mesonet station FIXFARM reported a 61 mph gust as the line of storm move over the location.
May 2020	Hail	Wray	-	Public relayed a report via Facebook of dime to nickel size hail falling at their location. They also reported a 24-hour rain total of 0.98.
August 2020	Hail	Wray	-	Trained spotter reported ongoing nickel sized hail.
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	A trained spotter observed an estimated 60 mph wind gust as the line of thunderstorms moved over the location.
May 2019	Hail	Wray	-	Also reported broken tree branches, but no diameter was given.
July 2019	Hail	Wray	-	The public reported via Facebook comment golf ball hail three miles west of Wray. The report also included a picture of several large hail stones.
July 2019	Hail	Wray	-	This was near Stalker lake.
July 2018	Hail	Wray	-	Dime size hail was reported.
May 2018	Hail	Wray	-	The hail ranged from penny to nickel size.
July 2018	Hail	Wray	-	Wind gusts of 60 MPH also occurred with the hail.
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	Quarter size hail occurred with the winds.
May 2018	Hail	Wray	-	Pea to nickel size hail was reported in Wray.
May 2018	Hail	Wray	-	Dime size hail reported in Wray.
June 2017	Hail	Wray	-	Golf ball to hen egg size hail fell in town.
May 2016	Tornado (EF0)	Wray	-	The weak tornado moved due north, crossing CR 32 less than a half mile west of the CR 32 and Highway 385 intersection. The tornado moved through electrical lines, but no power flashes or damage to the lines were evident in video of the tornado from a storm chaser. The tornado remained in open fields during its lifetime.
July 2014	Hail	Wray	-	Hail was mostly dime to quarter size with a few larger stones the size of golf balls.
June 2014	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	Trees and power lines blown down in Wray.
May 2013	Hail	Wray	-	The observer reported hail size ranging from .75 to one inch diameter hail.
May 2013	Hail	Wray	-	The hail sizes ranged from nickel to quarter size in town.
May 2011	Flash Flood	Wray	-	Republican River reported out of its banks at the Wray shopping center along Highway 34 in town. No stores were immediately being threatened by high water. River reported to be receding at 2034 MDT with rain ending. Rainfall of 1.57 inches reported at one point in the evening.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	NWS employee estimated peak winds to be near 60 mph.
August 2010	Hail	Wray	-	Heavy rain also occurred with water ponding at the intersection of Hwy 385 and Hwy 34.
June 2009	Hail	Wray	-	Most hailstones were 1.0 to 1.5 inches in diameter, but largest was 2.5 inches.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Wray	-	Observer reported 2.5 inches total rainfall with 2.00 inches falling in about 15 minutes. Observer reported severe flooding locally.
June 2008	Flash Flood	Wray	-	The second supercell of the afternoon produced torrential rainfall from Wray northward on highway 385. Water was reported running across roads.
June 2008	Tornado (EF0)	Wray	-	Employee reported a brief event...no known damage.
June 2008	Thunderstorm Wind	Wray	-	A local irrigation company in Wray measured a wind gust of 55 kts (63 mph).
May 2007	Hail	Wray	-	Hail covered the ground.
April 2007	Tornado (EF0)	Wray	-	Over open fields...no known damage.
May 2007	Tornado (EF0)	Wray	-	Tornado estimated near Rd JJ, Rd 34 (not Hwy 34). Tornado reported to be brief. Over open fields...no known damage.
April 2007	Hail	Wray	-	Dime-sized hail covered the ground.
April 2007	Flash Flood	Wray	-	Spotter reported flash flooding from slow-moving thunderstorms.

Every storm recorded in Yuma 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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 76000569 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Yuma County	All 5 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.