Shrine of the Sun

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.

From the record

“Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, also known as Will Rogers Shrine, is a commemorative tower and chapel on Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is named after Will Rogers, the American humorist, who died in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935 during construction of the shrine.”
Wikipedia article Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 98 National Register listings published here for El Paso 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 2 structuress, 2 objectss, 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. 4250 Cheyenne Mountain Zoo Rd., Colorado Springs, 80906
When was it listed? November 1994
Category. district
Census division. Cheyenne Mountain
National Register reference number. 94001229 - 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

992 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 992 fires within 5 miles of Shrine of the Sun between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,240 acres in total. 29 started naturally. 11 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	829
Smoking	48
Natural	29
Recreation and ceremony	24
Equipment and vehicle use	20
Debris and open burning	19
Arson/incendiarism	11
Fireworks	8
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 2019	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	not named
9 September 2019	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado State Forest Service-State Headquarters	not named
9 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado Springs Fire Department	UNKNOWN
9 September 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado Springs Fire Department	UNKNOWN
9 September 2016	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5.0 acres	El Paso County	UNKNOWN
8 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Colorado Springs Fire Department	UNKNOWN
8 September 2018	Smoking	under an acre	Colorado Springs Fire Department	UNKNOWN
7 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Stratmoor Hills Fire Protection District	UNKNOWN

Every fire recorded in El Paso County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 60 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 60 workings within 5 miles of Shrine of the Sun: 23 producers, 15 occurrences, 15 past producers, 5 unknowns. 23 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Fluorine-Fluorite, Uranium, Gold. 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
Blue Bird Mine	Uranium, Beryllium, Niobium (Columbium)	Past Producer	Columbite
Cheyenne District	Fluorine-Fluorite, Lead, Gold, Silver, Zinc, Thorium, Gemstone, REE, Niobium (Columbium), Beryllium, Titanium, Metal, Tin, Uranium	Producer	1901, 1910, 1945
Duffields Deposit	Fluorine-Fluorite, Gold, Lead, Zinc, Silver	Past Producer	1901, 1910, 1945
Eureka Shaft	Fluorine-Fluorite, Gemstone, Titanium, Metal	Past Producer	Cryolite, Fluorite
Gold Hill Mesa tailings	Gold, Silver	Past Producer	tailings
Kenmuir	Stone, Dimension	Producer
Manitou Green Stone	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Occurrence	Sedimentary
South Cheyenne Mine	Stone	Unknown
St Peters Dome Area	Niobium (Columbium), Tantalum, REE, Beryllium	Occurrence	Beryl, Pyrochlore
St Peters Dome Fluorite	Fluorine-Fluorite, Silver, Lead, Silica, Zinc, Gold	Prospect	1883, 1910

Every working recorded in El Paso County

Storms near this property

19 since 1993

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Colorado Springs, the town this property stands in, in 19 storm reports between 1993 and 1996: 16 hail, 2 thunderstorm wind, 1 tornado. 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
August 1993	Hail	Colorado Springs	$50,000	no account filed
August 1993	Hail	Colorado Springs	$5,000	no account filed
August 1995	Tornado (F0)	Colorado Springs	-	A tornado briefly touched down twice just southeast of the downtown Colorado Springs, first near the intersection of Hancock and Las Animas and then at the Fountain View Apartments, at the intersection of Hutchinson Drive and Fountain Blvd. Several windows were shattered in the apartment complex, and a 30-foot maple tree was toppled, cutting power lines to the apartment complex and damaging a nearby automobile.
June 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	Very heavy rain accompanied the dime-size hail. The slow moving storm dropped up to three inch rainfall amounts at some locations. A few areas measured rainfall rates of over one inch in 20 minutes.
July 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Colorado Springs	-	Lightning triggered a minor housefire in the attic. Thunderstorm winds snapped numerous tree limbs which damaged parked cars. In addition, larger branches blocked rush hour traffic along some roads.
May 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	Severe thunderstorms rumbled across El Paso County, dumping hail over much of the area. A spotter reported golf-ball size hail fell in Calhan (32 miles northeast of Colorado Springs).
September 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	,,,,,,,,Flash Flooding Thunderstorms containing hail up to 1 inch in diameter and very heavy rains moved over most of the city of Colorado Springs. Rain fell at the rate of four inches per half hour in isolated locations across the city. Hail accumulated to 6 to 9 inches deep near Garden of the Gods west of Colorado Springs. Snow plows were called out at several locations to remove accumulated hail. Four to five feet of water on one city street stranded six people in their cars who needed to be rescued. Water at Templeton Gap Floodway was 10 to 15 feet deep and 100 feet wide. 100 people were evacuated from Campers Village Mobile Home Park, where water rose rapidly to a depth of four feet.
May 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	Severe thunderstorms rumbled across El Paso County, dumping hail over much of the area. A spotter reported golf-ball size hail fell in Calhan (32 miles northeast of Colorado Springs).
May 1996	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
August 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
July 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
May 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
May 1995	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
June 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
July 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
July 1994	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
August 1993	Thunderstorm Wind	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed
August 1993	Hail	Colorado Springs	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in El Paso 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
El Pomar Estate	1.1 miles	1995
Pauline Chapel	1.4 miles	2001
Claremont	1.7 miles	1977
North Cheyenne Canon Park	1.9 miles	2009
John Wolfe House	2.2 miles	2013
Maytag Aircraft Building	4.1 miles	2008

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 94001229 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
El Paso County	All 98 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.