Mantle's Cave

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“Mantle's Cave is a cliff alcove in Dinosaur National Monument in Moffat County, Colorado. Located in the Castle Park region of the park, it is the largest rock shelter in the area.”
Wikipedia article Mantle's Cave, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 13 National Register listings published here for Moffat County · listed in 1994 · category: Site.

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 35 structuress, 2 objectss, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. Dinosaur NM, Dinosaur, 81640
When was it listed? May 1994
Category. site
Census division. Dinosaur
National Register reference number. 94000394 - 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

126 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 126 fires within 5 miles of Mantle's Cave between 1992 and 2020, burning about 633 acres in total. 124 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	124
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	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
7 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	STRIKE
5 September 1996	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	REDD
4 September 2009	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	HARDING
28 September 2008	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Craig	HELLS
28 September 2008	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Craig	ANTELOPE
27 September 2004	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Craig	BOBCAT
22 September 2010	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	PEARL
22 September 2010	Natural	under an acre	Dinosaur National Monument	BILLIARD

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	6.2 miles	1987

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94000394 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.