Devils Tower, Belle Fourche River, Wyoming
Additional Details:
| NE DAY three Sioux Maidens while out gathering wild flowers were beset by three bears. The maidens took refuge upon a large rock which the bears were also able to climb. The Gods seeing the maidens about to be devoured caused the rock to grow up out of the ground. As the rock grew the maidens climbed, but the bears followed. At last becoming exhausted the bears could climb no further and fell to their death on the rocks below. The maidens then took the flowers they had gathered and made them into a rope with which they safely lowered themselves to the ground below. Thus the Indians account for the origin of the Devil's Tower, but science tells us it is the plug or remains of an old volcano that never sprouted. It stands in northeastern Wyoming on the Custer Battlefield Highway, a state and federal aid highway. It is 1280 feet high from the Belle Fourche River bed—the shaft proper is 800 feet high. The Devil's Tower is one of the twenty-four National Monuments where the tourist will find a fine overnight camp ground with spring water and a refuge cabin built by the National Park Service. The Indians also say that during the thunder storms the Thunder God takes his mighty drum to the Top of the Tower where he beats it, thus causing the thunder. |
