Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“The Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District in Colorado National Monument comprises a complex of park service buildings, designed by the National Park Service Branch of Plans and Designs in the National Park Service Rustic style. The primary designer was National Park Service architect Kenneth M.”
Wikipedia article Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 33 National Register listings published here for Mesa County · listed in 1994 · category: District.

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 4 buildingss as contributing to the listing.
Address. Colorado National Monument, Grand Junction, 81521
When was it listed? April 1994
Category. district
Also known as. Colorado National Monument MPS
Census division. Glade Park-Gateway
Architectural style. National Park Service rustic
National Register reference number. 94000308 - 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

346 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 346 fires within 5 miles of Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District between 1992 and 2020, burning about 620 acres in total. 85 started naturally. 5 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
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	168
Natural	85
Smoking	29
Equipment and vehicle use	23
Recreation and ceremony	18
Debris and open burning	8
Fireworks	6
Arson/incendiarism	5
Misuse of fire by a minor	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	2

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 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Grand Junction Fire Department	UNKNOWN
7 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5.0 acres	Northwest District, Grand Junction	KINGS VIEW
7 September 2015	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Grand Junction Fire Department	UNKNOWN
6 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Mesa County	MM 20
6 September 2007	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Northwest District, Grand Junction	FLUME CREEK
6 September 1996	Natural	under an acre	Colorado National Monument	JOES FIRE
5 September 2014	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Lower Valley Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN
5 September 2013	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Grand Junction Fire Department	UNKNOWN

Every fire recorded in Mesa County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 15 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 15 workings within 5 miles of Saddlehorn Utility Area Historic District: 10 unknowns, 3 producers, 2 occurrences. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Fire Clay (Refractory), Stone, Dimension, Stone. 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
Unknown	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Occurrence
Unknown	Stone, Dimension	Occurrence
Unnamed Mine	Stone	Unknown
Unnamed Mine	Clay	Unknown
Allen Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Fruita Ready Mix	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Gravel Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Huffer Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Every working recorded in Mesa County

Storms near this property

2 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Grand Junction, the town this property stands in, in 2 storm reports between 1993 and 1996: 1 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning. 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
September 1996	Lightning	Grand Junction	$4,000	no account filed
September 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Grand Junction	-	Thunderstorm winds gusted to 60 mph (52 knots) at the Grand Junction airport.

Every storm recorded in Mesa 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
Saddlehorn Comfort Station	0.2 miles	1994
Saddlehorn Caretaker's House and Garage	0.3 miles	1994
Colorado National Monument Visitor Center Complex	0.4 miles	2003
Fruita Bridge	2.5 miles	1985
Fruita Museum	3.4 miles	1996
Rim Rock Drive Historic District	3.5 miles	1994

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94000308 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Mesa County	All 33 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.