Obsidian Cliff

A National Historic Landmark. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

From the record

“Obsidian Cliff, also known as 48YE433, was an important source of lithic materials for prehistoric peoples in Yellowstone National Park near Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming, United States. The cliff was named by Philetus Norris, the second park superintendent in 1878.”
Wikipedia article Obsidian Cliff, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 38 National Register listings published here for Park County · listed in 1996 · 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

Address. Approx. 13 mi. S of Mammoth;E. side of US 89, S. of ObsidianCliff Kiosk, Mammoth, 82190
When was it listed? June 1996
Category. site
Census division. Yellowstone National Park
National Register reference number. 96000973 - 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

3 since 2003

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 3 fires within 5 miles of Obsidian Cliff between 2003 and 2007, burning under an acre in total. 2 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	2
Smoking	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
12 August 2003	Natural	under an acre	Yellowstone National Park	WILLOW
1 July 2007	Smoking	under an acre	Yellowstone National Park	SOLFATARA
9 June 2004	Natural	under an acre	Yellowstone National Park	NORRIS

Every fire recorded in Park 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

2 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
	Obsidian Cliff Kiosk	1.8 miles	1982
	Norris Museum/Norris Comfort Station	5.8 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 96000973 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Park County	All 38 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.