Your Fee Dollars at Work

One of the park's first visitor fees was 50 cents for 15 days, or $1 for annual passes. The date of this photo is unknown, but likely circa 1950s.

NPS photo

The history of fee collection at national parks predates the National Park Service. Throughout that history, the basic idea for user fees at national parks has often been to support public lands with as little federal appropriations as possible. For the majority of parks that collect user fees today, most of that money is used by the park which collected the fee. At Devils Tower National Monument, 80% of all fees (entrance and camping) are used to improve facilities and services at the Tower. The remainder enters a Treasury fund to support parks which do not collect fees.

When you visit Devils Tower National Monument, your entrance fee pays for the facilities and services available for you and other visitors. Some of those services are easy to spot, such as clean restrooms and ranger programs. Others often go unnoticed. Below is a sample of some of the more recent projects that were completed with money collected from visitor use fees.

 

The park's visitor center, originally built in 1936, is one of many structures that are maintained through visitor user fees.

NPS photo

Projects Funded with Visitor Use Fees:

• Campground maintenance
• Maintain asphault walkways around the Tower and other areas
• Staff and equipment for interpretive ranger programs
• Improvements to park visitor center
• Park staff during peak visitation