Land's End Observatory

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“Land's End Observatory is a ranger observatory on the rim of Grand Mesa in Colorado. It is accessible from the Grand Mesa Scenic and Historic Byway via Land's End Road, which is about half paved and half gravel.”
Wikipedia article Land's End Observatory, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 33 National Register listings published here for Mesa County · listed in 1997 · category: Building.

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 2 buildingss, 1 structure as contributing to the listing.
Address. Land's End Rd., 10 mi. W of CO 65, Whitewater, 81527
When was it listed? February 1997
Category. building
Census division. Collbran
Architectural style. rustic architecture
National Register reference number. 97000124 - 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

62 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 62 fires within 5 miles of Land's End Observatory between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,101 acres in total. 50 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	50
Recreation and ceremony	6
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	4
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Equipment and vehicle use	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
8 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Grand Junction	DERRYBERRY
7 September 2000	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Grand Junction	WHITEWATER
3 September 2011	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Northwest District, Grand Junction	LONG MESA II
3 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests	BIRTHDAY
28 September 2004	Natural	under an acre	Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests	SANFORD RIDGE
26 September 1998	Recreation and ceremony	under an acre	Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests	LANDS END
21 September 2005	Natural	under an acre	Northwest District, Grand Junction	SPARKY DOL
17 September 1995	Natural	under an acre	Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests	DEEP CREEK

Every fire recorded in Mesa County

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Land's End Observatory: 2 unknowns. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Uranium. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Forest Service	Uranium	Unknown
	Unnamed Mine	Uranium	Unknown

Every working recorded in Mesa County

Storms near this property

12 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Whitewater, the town this property stands in, in 12 storm reports between 1998 and 2021: 3 heavy rain, 3 thunderstorm wind, 3 flash flood, 1 tornado. The reports record 4 injuries. 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 2016	Heavy Rain	Whitewater	4 hurt	Heavy rainfall resulted in reduced visibilities along Highway 50 near Whitewater where a fatal car accident occurred.
July 1998	Heavy Rain	Whitewater	$15,000	no account filed
August 2002	Flood	Whitewater	$10,000	no account filed
August 2017	Flash Flood	Whitewater	$5,000	After receiving 0.98 inches of heavy rain on August 4 and receiving another 1.20 inches throughout the whole day on August 5, flash flooding occurred. Rocks and other debris were washed across the pasture, into some trees, and also across the driveway due to the culverts running high. The debris and water flowing across the gravel driveway washed out a portion of the driveway. The siding on one of the outbuildings came off. Additionally, both the power and phone lines were out for a couple of hours. The Colorado Department of Transportation was out until 0200 on August 6 clearing the roads.
July 2013	Flash Flood	Whitewater	$5,000	Heavy runoff from local thunderstorms washed a basketball sized rock into the mouth of a culvert, which caused water to back up and run over the roadway.
July 2013	Flash Flood	Whitewater	$3,000	Flash flooding along Kannah Creek caused mud and boulders to wash into a yard and damage an access road.
August 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitewater	$2,000	Strong thunderstorm winds that were enhanced by gradient winds blew a construction worker off a scaffolding near Whitewater. The strong winds also blew the unfinished house off of its foundation.
September 2000	Tornado (F1)	Whitewater	$1,000	no account filed
September 2021	Debris Flow	Whitewater	-	An NWS employee reported 6 to 8 inches of water and mud flowing across a driveway in a residential area as a result of heavy rains.
July 2018	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitewater	-	A trained spotter reported an estimated wind gust of 60 mph as a result of strong outflow from a high-based thunderstorm.
July 2005	Heavy Rain	Whitewater	-	no account filed
June 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Whitewater	-	no account filed

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.

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97000124 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.