What Is Devils Tower and How Did It Form?

What Is Devils Tower?

Devils Tower is a massive igneous rock monolith in northeastern Wyoming that rises 1,267 feet above the Belle Fourche River — a solitary column of ancient stone that scientists, geologists, and Native American nations have studied and revered for centuries.

How Did Devils Tower Form?

Roughly 40 million years ago, magma forced its way upward into surrounding sedimentary rock. As it cooled slowly underground, it contracted and cracked into the distinctive hexagonal and polygonal columns visible today — a process called columnar jointing. Over tens of millions of years, erosion gradually wore away the softer rock surrounding this hardened igneous core, exposing the tower we see standing alone on the Wyoming plains. Geologists broadly agree on this sequence of events, but debate continues over whether the magma intruded as a laccolith, a volcanic plug, or another igneous feature — making Devils Tower one of the few major geological formations whose exact origin still generates scientific disagreement.

The Numbers Behind the Monument

Devils Tower stands 5,112 feet above sea level. Its base spans approximately 1,000 feet across, yet its flat summit measures only about 1.5 acres — roughly the size of a football field. The columns forming its walls range from 6 to 20 feet in diameter, and the entire structure is composed primarily of phonolite porphyry, a relatively rare igneous rock. President Theodore Roosevelt designated it the United States’ first national monument in 1906.

Sacred to Native American Tribes

More than 20 Indigenous nations hold Devils Tower sacred, most commonly calling it Bear Lodge. Origin stories vary across tribes — many involve bears, whose claw marks are said to explain the tower’s deeply grooved columns. The Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Crow are among the nations with deep cultural and spiritual ties to the site. Each June, the National Park Service asks climbers to voluntarily refrain from scaling the tower out of respect for Indigenous ceremonies held there, though the request is not legally enforceable.

The Man Stranded on the Summit

In October 1941, a daredevil named George Hopkins parachuted onto the summit of Devils Tower on a bet — and immediately realized his escape rope had coiled uselessly on a ledge far below. For six days, Hopkins survived on water dropped by supply planes while rescuers debated how to get him down. Expert climber Jack Durrance finally led a team up the tower’s sheer columns to bring Hopkins safely to the ground. The story remains one of the stranger chapters in American adventure history.

Devils Tower in Popular Culture

In 1977, Steven Spielberg chose Devils Tower as the dramatic alien landing site in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, cementing the monument’s place in global pop culture. Park visitation surged the following year as audiences who had never heard of the Wyoming landmark suddenly needed to see it for themselves. The film’s influence is still felt — many visitors arrive with the iconic five-note musical motif stuck in their heads.

Visiting Devils Tower Today

Devils Tower National Monument sits in Crook County in the Black Hills region of Wyoming, near the town of Hulett. The monument receives roughly 500,000 visitors per year. A 1.3-mile Tower Trail loops around the base, offering close-up views of the columns and the massive boulders that have fallen from the tower’s walls over time. Rock climbing is permitted on most routes throughout the year, though the voluntary June closure is widely observed.