This booklet is published by the DEVILS TOWER NATURALHISTORY ASSOCIATION, a nonprofit organization dedicatedto help preserve the features of outstanding nationalinterest in the Devils Tower area. The association is pledgedto aid in the interpretation of the human history and naturalhistory of this area, that the visitor might better enjoyand appreciate more of his natural and historical heritage.

The original reprint (April 1956) was made possible fromthe periodical Annals of Wyoming through the courtesy ofthe Wyoming State Historical Society and the WyomingState Archives and Historical Department.

Revised March 1973 with minor corrections and narrativeadditions.

Mateo Tepee or Devils Tower, Crook County, Wyoming.Courtesy National Park Service.

Devils Tower National Monument—A History

By
Ray H. Mattison, Historian
National Park Service

In preparing this article, the writer wishes to acknowledge the assistancegiven him by Mr. Newell F. Joyner, former Custodian of Devils TowerNational Monument. Mr. Joyner, while stationed at the Tower, collected considerablematerial for a history of the area which was freely used by theauthor.

The year 1956 marked the 50th Anniversary of the establishmentof Devils Tower National Monument, the first of our nationalmonuments. The same year was likewise the GoldenAnniversary of the enactment of the Antiquities Act whichauthorized the President, by proclamation, to set aside “historicallandmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and otherobjects of historic or scientific interest that are upon the landsowned or controlled by the United States as National Monuments.”Under this law and subsequent authorizations, 80national monuments have now been established.

All who have seen the gigantic stump-like formation, knownas Devils Tower, rising some 1,200 feet above the Belle FourcheRiver, will understand why it inspired the imagination of theIndians. They called it Mateo Tepee, meaning Grizzly BearLodge, and had several legends regarding its origin. Accordingto the Kiowas, who at one time are reputed to have livedin the region, their tribe once camped in a stream wherethere were many bears. One day seven little girls were playingat a distance from the village and were chased by somebears. The girls ran toward the village and when the bearswere about to catch them, they jumped to a low rock aboutthree feet in height. One of them prayed to the rock, “Rock,take pity on us—Rock, save us.” The rock heard them andbegan to elongate itself upwards, pushing the children higherand higher out of reach of the bears. When the bears jumpedat them they scratched the rock, broke their claws and fellback upon the ground. The rock continued to push the childrenupward into the sky while the bears jumped at them. Thechildren are still in the sky, seven little stars in a group (the4...