Denis Julien Inscription

Built in 1838. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

From the record

“The Denis Julien Inscription was left on a rock face in 1838 along the Green River in Moffat County, Colorado by Denis Julien, a French-American trapper who was one of the few Europeans in the area in the 1830s. Julien made a practice of leaving his mark on locations along the Green and Colorado rivers, leaving at least eight such marks.”
Wikipedia article Denis Julien Inscription (Moffat County, Colorado), CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Moffat County · listed in 1986 · category: Site · built in 1838.

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

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Julien, Denis, Inscription - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. US 40, Dinosaur, 81640
When was it listed? December 1986
Category. site
Also known as. Dinosaur National Monument MRA
Census division. Maybell-Powder Wash
When was it built? 1838
National Register reference number. 86003395 - 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

98 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 98 fires within 5 miles of Denis Julien Inscription between 1992 and 2018, burning about 1,586 acres in total. 98 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
Natural	98

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
7 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	IRON
6 September 1996	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	HARPERS
5 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	TRAIL
5 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	OUTLAW
29 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	UNSEEN
26 September 1992	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	RIPPLING
2 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	JUNCTION
2 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	RIM

Every fire recorded in Moffat County

Storms near this property

13 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Dinosaur, the town this property stands in, in 13 storm reports between 1998 and 2011: 5 wildfire, 2 tornado, 2 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind. 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 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Dinosaur	-	Thunderstorm wind gusts to 60 mph and half inch sized hail were reported in Dinosaur.
June 2011	Thunderstorm Wind	Dinosaur	-	A severe thunderstorm with pea sized hail and winds estimated at 60 mph were reported at the Dinosaur National Monument area.
August 2009	Tornado (EF0)	Dinosaur	-	A tornado was observed by many people in the Rangely area and also photographed by a couple of individuals. The tornado remained over open country during its lifespan. The tornado track location is an estimate based on triangulation of eyewitness reports.
September 2007	Hail	Dinosaur	-	Nickel size hail occurred at Dinosaur National Monument Headquarters.
September 2007	Hail	Dinosaur	-	Hail covered the ground.
August 2006	Tornado (F1)	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
July 2005	Heavy Rain	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
July 2001	Wildfire	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
August 2001	Wildfire	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
July 2000	Wildfire	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
July 2000	Wildfire	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
July 1999	Flash Flood	Dinosaur	-	no account filed
August 1998	Wildfire	Dinosaur	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Moffat 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

1 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
	Rial Chew Ranch Complex	3.3 miles	1987

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 86003395 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Moffat County	All 13 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.
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.