This Thing is in the Wrong Place!

I watched Close Encounters like everyone else with a pulse. Making the Devils Tower out of mashed potatoes, or paper mache, etc. Those wonderful deep notes, the hand signs. Cool.
Who knew Devils Tower is in Wyoming? Eastern Wyoming, almost South Dakota!
Is it just me? I thought it was in Nevada or Arizona, maybe New Mexico. Doesn't it look like it belongs there, among all those other mesas, tablas, table rocks of the Southwest?
Nope.
Sits out on the edge of wheat farmland. Well, almost. There are the badlands and smaller mountains not too far away. But, nothing like the tower.
Neat thing about Devils Tower. In the late 1800s, a couple of ranchers, Bill Rogers and Willard Ripley, possibly high on milk from cows who ate loco weed - or just weed, decided to climb Devils Tower. Impress the neighbors, etc. make a few bucks, since ranching was slow.
So, if you're going to climb 900 feet of nearly vertical rock columns, what do you need?
A ladder, a really long ladder. a long vertical crack on the side of the tower then fastened them together on the outer edge with boards. The crack and its ladder took the daredevil rancher Willard Ripley up about 35 stories, until he could reach a sloping area and climb to the top, becoming, in June 1893, the first person known to summit the Tower.
A few days later, the 4th of July, they had attracted a crowd of 800 people to watch Bill Rogers, dressed like Uncle Sam climb to the top and wave an American flag.
On the 4th, three years later, probably tired of hearing about his feat, his wife took the same route and became the first woman to top Devils Tower.
A refurbished upper portion of the ladder is still there for visitors to the National Monument to see.