Devils Tower

Name: Devils Tower
Address: US

데빌스 타워

This giant stump of rock rises 386 m above the Belle Fourche River from the prairie of Wyoming, USA. Magma cooled underground into countless tall columns, and the softer rock around it was later worn away, leaving the tower standing. In 1906 it became the first U.S. National Monument, and Native American legends say its grooves were scratched by the claws of a giant bear.

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At a glance

Country: United States
Height: 265 m
Type: Mountain
Kind: Mysteries

Quick answers

Where is Devils Tower?

Devils Tower is in United States.

How tall is Devils Tower?

Devils Tower is about 265 m tall.

Devils Tower is a huge tower of rock rising from the Black Hills in northeastern Wyoming. It stands about 386 metres above the Belle Fourche River below, and its flat top is 1,558 metres above sea level.

In 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt made it the first national monument in the United States. Many Native American nations hold it sacred, and the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind made it famous worldwide. The monument encloses about 545 hectares of land. Visitors come to hike around the base, to climb the columns, and to learn about the tower's meaning to Native peoples.

How did it form?

The tower is made of igneous rock, which was molten magma that pushed into layers of sedimentary rock about 56 to 66 million years ago and cooled underground. Over millions of years, wind and water wore away the softer rock around it and left the tower standing.

As the magma cooled it shrank and cracked into long columns, which give the sides their grooved look. The rocks around the tower are mostly red sandstone and siltstone laid down in a shallow sea in the Triassic period, long before the tower formed.

Names and stories

Native nations know it as Bear's Lodge or Bear's House. The name Devils Tower came from an 1875 expedition whose interpreter reportedly misunderstood a native name.

Several tribes tell of giant bears clawing the sides, leaving the long grooves. In one story, girls chased by a bear were saved when the ground rose beneath them. In 2005 and 2014, people proposed adding or changing the name to Bear Lodge, but the name was not changed.

Fun facts

In 1906 it became the first US national monument, and it starred in the 1977 film Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
It was the first US national monument, created on 24 September 1906.
The summit is about 264 metres above the tower's base.
Rock climbers and skydivers are drawn to it.