Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
bear, forcing the sisters to flee in search of safety. They climbed onto a rock and prayed for
divine intervention. The rock began to grow skyward as the bear clawed at it to get to the
sisters. Eventually, the girls were so high that they became the stars in the Big Dipper, and
the tower still bears the scars of the bear's ferocious claws.
Many tribes conducted their most sacred events—including sun dances, sweat lodges,
vision quests, and funerals—in the shadow of the tower, and they still do.
First studied in 1875 by scientists H. Newton and Walter P. Jenney, who were commis-
sioned to complete a geological survey of the area, the land surrounding the tower was
wisely pulled from homestead acreage in 1892, and the government created Devils Tower
Reserve the following year. President Theodore Roosevelt dedicated Devils Tower as the
country's first national monument in 1906.
Although it is constantly overrun by people, the area around and on top of the tower is
ecologically significant. A colony of threatened black-tailed prairie dogs, who today occupy
only 2 percent of their former habitat, make their home in the soft soils around the tower.
Prairie falcons are known to nest in the cracks of the tower, requiring temporary closures to
protect their young. Even on the grassy top of the tower, which is about the size of a foot-
ball field, many wildlife species have been recorded, including chipmunks, mice, pack rats,
and snakes.
Playing into the “because it's there” mentality, adventurers have long looked at ways to
climb the soaring monolith. The first recorded ascent involved an oak peg ladder on July 4,
1893, by local ranchers Bill Rogers and W. A. Ripley, much to the delight of local revelers.
Rogers's wife, Linnie, was the first woman to climb it (using the ladder) two years later on
July 4, 1895. Both spectacles included crazy patriotic costumes, some 2,000 spectators, and
live music. Although the ladder was no longer used after 1927, portions of it are still visible
on the southwest side of the tower.
