Devils Tower National Monument: A History

by Ray H. Mattison

Indian legend depicting the origin of Devils Tower. Courtesy National Park Service.

The Cheyenne version of the origin of the Tower is somewhat different. According to their legend, there were seven brothers. When the wife of the oldest brother went out to fix the smoke wings of her tipi, a big bear carried her away to his cave. Her husband mourned her loss deeply and would go out and cry defiantly to the bear. The youngest of the brothers was a medicine man and had great powers. He told the oldest one to go out and make a bow and four blunt arrows. Two arrows were to be painted red and set with eagle feathers; the other two were to be painted black and set with buzzard feathers. The youngest brother then took the bow and small arrows, told the older brothers to fill their quivers with arrows and they all went out after the big bear. At the entrance of the cave, the younger brother told the others to sit down and wait. He then turned himself into a gopher and dug a big hole in the bear’s den. When he crawled in he found the bear lying with his head on the woman’s lap. He then put the bear to sleep and changed himself back into an Indian. He then had the woman crawl back to the entrance where the six brothers were waiting. Then the hole closed up. After the Indians hurried away, the bear awoke. He started after them taking all the bears of which he was the leader.

The Indians finally came to the place where Devils Tower now stands. The youngest boy always carried a small rock in his hand. He told his six brothers and the woman to close their eyes. He sang a song. When he had finished the rock had grown. He sang four times and when he had finished singing the rock was just as high as it is today. When the bears reached the Tower, the brothers killed all of the bears except the leader, who kept jumping against the rock. His claws made the marks that are on the rock today. The youngest brother then shot two black arrows and a red arrow without effect. His last arrow killed the bear. The youngest brother then made a noise like a bald eagle. Four eagles came. They took hold of the eagles’ legs and were carried to the ground.

The Tower also was an object of curiosity to the early white explorers. Although early fur traders and others probably saw the gigantic formation at a distance, none ever mentioned it in their journals. Lt. G. K. Warren’s Expedition of 1855 passed through the Black Hills en route from Fort Laramie to Fort Pierre but probably never was within sight of it. In 1857, Warren, accompanied by Dr. F. V. Hayden and others started from Fort Laramie to explore the Black Hills and then returned to the Missouri via the Niobrara River. At Inyan Kara, they met a large party of Sioux who threatened to attack if they attempted to advance farther. While here, Warren reported seeing the “Bear’s Lodge” and “Little Missouri Buttes” to the north through a powerful spy-glass. It is not known if he was referring to the Bear Lodge Mountains or to the Tower itself. The explorers retraced their route 40 miles and took another route eastward instead of the one originally planned. When Capt. W. F. Raynolds’ Yellowstone Expedition passed through the Black Hills region two years later, J. T. Hutton, topographer, and the Sioux interpreter, Zephyr Recontre, on July 20 reached the Tower and returned to the Expedition’s camp on the Little Missouri River. Neither Warren nor Raynolds, however, left descriptions of the formation.

It remained for the U. S. Geological Survey party, who made a reconnaissance of the Black Hills in 1875, to call attention to the uniqueness of the Tower. Col. Richard I. Dodge, commander of the military escort, described it in the following year as “one of the most remarkable peaks in this or any country.” Henry Newton (1845-1877), geological assistant to the expedition, wrote:

... Its (the tower’s) remarkable structure, its symmetry, and its prominence made it an unfailing object of wonder.... It is a great remarkable obelisk of trachyte, with a columnar structure, giving it a vertically stratiated appearance, and it rises 625 feet almost perpendicular, from its base. Its summit is so entirely inaccessible that the energetic explorer, to whom the ascent of an ordinary difficult crag is but a pleasant pastime, standing at its base could only look upward in despair of ever planting his feet on the top....

Colonel Dodge is generally credited with giving the formation it present name. In his book entitled The Black Hills, published in 1876, he called it “Devils Tower,” explaining “The Indians call this shaft The Bad God’s Tower, a name adopted with proper modification, by our surveyors.” Newton, whose published work on the survey appeared in 1880, explained that the name Bear Lodge (Mateo Tepee) “appears on the earliest map of the region, and though more recently it is said to be known among the Indians as 'the bad god’s tower,’ or in better English, 'the devil’s tower,’ the former name, well applied, is still retained.” However, since that time, the name Devils Tower has been generally used. Geologists, on the other hand, have in some instances continued to use the original name.

Over the years there have been changing theories concerning the origin of Devils Tower. The latest belief, based upon the most extensive geological field work yet done, probably will be supported by further study.

Briefly stated, about 60 million years ago when the Rocky Mountains were formed, there was similar upheaval which produced the Black Hills and associated mountains. Great masses of very hot, plastic material from within welled up into the earth’s crust. In some instances it reached the surface to produce lava flows or spectacular explosive volcanoes which spread layers of ash many feet over a vast part of the Great Plains.