Van Hise Rock

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

From the record

“Van Hise Rock is a rock monolith located along Wisconsin Highway 136 near Rock Springs, Wisconsin. The rock is a geologically significant outcropping of Baraboo Quartzite.”
Wikipedia article Van Hise Rock, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 58 National Register listings published here for Sauk County · listed in 1997 · category: Site · a National Historic Landmark.

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

The listing

National Historic Landmark. The highest federal designation, held by about 2,600 places in the country against roughly 100,000 Register listings.
What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 site as contributing to the listing.
Address. WI 136, 0.75 mi. N of WI 154, Rock Springs, 53961
When was it listed? September 1997
Category. site
Town. Excelsior town
National Register reference number. 97001267 - 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

136 since 1992

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 136 fires within 5 miles of Van Hise Rock between 1992 and 2020, burning about 299 acres in total. 2 started naturally. 10 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
Debris and open burning	53
Equipment and vehicle use	22
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18
Railroad operations and maintenance	11
Arson/incendiarism	10
Smoking	7
Power generation/transmission/distribution	5
Recreation and ceremony	5
Natural	2
Other causes	2
Misuse of fire by a minor	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
3 September 2008	Arson/incendiarism	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
4 August 2001	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
26 August 1996	Railroad operations and maintenance	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
25 August 2003	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
14 August 2015	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	ABLEMAN ROAD FIRE
1 August 2001	Natural	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
31 July 2001	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named
28 July 2005	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources	not named

Every fire recorded in Sauk County

Mines and quarries near this property

8 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 8 workings within 5 miles of Van Hise Rock: 7 past producers, 1 producer. 1 still produces. What was taken out: Iron, Flagstone, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction. 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
Foley Brothers Rock Springs Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Wormet Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Alfred Boyles Flagstone Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Bloss Stone Company Quarry	Flagstone	Past Producer
Illinois Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1904, 1916
Illinois Mine	Iron	Past Producer	1904
Sauk Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Sauk Mine	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Sauk 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
Steam Locomotive #1385	2.9 miles	2000
Freedom Mine	4.2 miles	2020
William Riggert House	5.2 miles	1984
Ralph P. Perry House	5.2 miles	2022
Edward M. Hackett House	5.3 miles	1984
Abner L. Harris House	5.3 miles	1984

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 97001267 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Sauk County	All 58 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.