Photograph by National Park Service inventory, Public domain. Via
Wikimedia Commons.
Tower Ladder-Devils Tower National Monument
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.
From the record
“The Ladder at Devils Tower was first constructed and used in 1893 by William Rogers and Willard Ripley to publicly ascend Devil's Tower. Two years later Roger's wife Linnie ascended the tower via the ladder, one of a total of about 215 who have used the ladder.”
Wikipedia article Tower Ladder (Devils Tower National Monument), CC BY-SA 4.0.
One of 10 National Register listings published here for Crook County · listed in 2000 · category: Structure.
National Register reference number.00000855- 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
40 since 1992
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 40 fires within 5 miles of Tower Ladder-Devils Tower National Monument
between 1992 and 2020, burning about 2,298 acres in total. 19 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
19
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
10
Debris and open burning
7
Equipment and vehicle use
4
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
6 workings within 5 miles of Tower Ladder-Devils Tower National Monument: 4 occurrences, 1 unknown, 1 prospect.
None of them still produces. What was taken out: Uranium, Gypsum-Anhydrite. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Devils Tower, the town this property stands in, in 62 storm reports between 1996 and 2024: 45 hail, 14 thunderstorm wind, 1 lightning, 1 tornado.
The reports record 7 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.
Numerous reports of broken windows, building damage, extensive camper and vehicle damage, and extensive tree damage throughout the Devils Tower area. There was one injury when a person suffered an elbow contusion from flying debris at a campground and had to receive medical attention.
A tornado touched down at a ranch east of Devils Tower, where it destroyed an old house and barn, and snapped and uprooted large Ponderosa pine trees along its track.
Numerous trees downed and damaged within Devils Tower National Monument. Some trails within the park were closed for several days for cleanup, including the main trail around the monument.
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
3 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.
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.
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