Shadow Mountain Lookout

Built in 1932 (National Park Service rustic). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

From the record

“The Shadow Mountain Lookout, also known as the Shadow Mountain Patrol Cabin, was built in Rocky Mountain National Park in 1932, to the design of the National Park Service San Francisco Landscape Architecture Division. It was regarded as one of the best National Park Service Rustic buildings in the national park system.”
Wikipedia article Shadow Mountain Lookout, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 22 National Register listings published here for Grand County · listed in 1978 · category: Building · built in 1932, National Park Service rustic, by National Park Service.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. SE of Grand Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Lake, 80447
When was it listed? August 1978
Category. building
Also known as. Rocky Mountain National Park MRA (AD); Rocky Mountain National Park MRA
Census division. Granby
When was it built? 1932
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
Architect. National Park Service
National Register reference number. 78000279 - 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

70 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 70 fires within 5 miles of Shadow Mountain Lookout between 1992 and 2020, burning about 118 acres in total. 13 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
Recreation and ceremony	27
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	22
Natural	13
Smoking	3
Debris and open burning	2
Equipment and vehicle use	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	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
6 September 2018	Natural	under an acre	Grand Lake Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
20 September 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland	SODA CREEK
16 September 1999	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland	HIDDEN COVE
15 September 2019	Natural	under an acre	Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland	KAWUNEECHE
15 September 2019	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland	SOUTH SUPPLY
12 September 2017	Natural	under an acre	Grand Lake Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
9 August 1995	Natural	under an acre	Rocky Mountain National Park	SUMMERLAND
6 August 2015	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland	123

Every fire recorded in Grand County

Mines and quarries near this property

5 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 5 workings within 5 miles of Shadow Mountain Lookout: 3 occurrences, 1 unknown, 1 past producer. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Gold, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Lead. 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
Grand Lake Wolverine	Lead, Gold, Copper, Silver	Past Producer
Gravel Pit	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Unknown
Stillwater Creek Placers	Gold	Occurrence	Placer
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence	Sedimentary
Unknown	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Occurrence	Gravel

Every working recorded in Grand County

Storms near this property

2 since 2021

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Grand Lake, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports in 2021: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 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
July 2021	Flash Flood	Grand Lake	$25,000	Flash flooding along Tonahutu Creek forced the shut down of Grand Lake's hydro plant.
July 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Lake	-	Strong microburst winds damaged several boats at Grand Lake. Two large pontoon boats were lifted out of the water, one landed upside down near a home.

Every storm recorded in Grand 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

6 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Shadow Mountain Trail	0.6 miles	2008
Smith-Eslick Cottage Court	1.4 miles	2016
Kauffman House	1.4 miles	1974
Grand Lake Lodge	2.0 miles	1993
Greenwood Lodge	4.1 miles	2010
East Inlet Trail	4.3 miles	2005

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 78000279 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Grand County	All 22 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.