![]() “And we have 12 cabins and 50 tent sites.” “We have over 100 sites now,” Zannie said. The Driskills have been expanding the campground since becoming its operators, adding new features every year, as well as adding new and better camping sites. “The campground has become a much bigger deal than the ranch,” he said. While the Devils Tower KOA was a passion project for Ellen, it’s turned into something more fortuitous than anyone could have foreseen, Ogden told Cowboy State Daily. Its success soon led to more KOAs all over the nation. Two years later, the first KOA franchise was opened in Cody, Wyoming. KOA sites, which stands for Kampgrounds of America, were a relatively new thing at the time, started by Dave Drum, who had noticed tons of station wagons and early-model RVs camping along the sides of roads and in church parking lots on their way to the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.ĭrum talked to these travelers about their experiences and got the idea to create a commercial campground on his property with electrical hook-ups, shower facilities, a convenience store and, as a bonus, views of the Yellowstone River. Turning the pasture that had been the decontamination site in the Close Encounters movie into a KOA campground was an idea from Ogden’s mother, Ellen. ![]() (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) From Film Location To Campground Scenes are painted on the teepee depicting American Indian legends about the tower, which was known to them as Bear Lodge. Red canyon walls make a dramatic backdrop for the teepees at the Devils Tower KOA. “We’ve done it ever since that came out.” “Somebody told us that the movie is in Ripley’s (Believe It Or Not) as the most-shown movie, and it’s because we show it every night,” Zannie said. It had a healthy audience for a recent August showing, with 30 to 40 people watching.ĭevils Tower rises from the Wyoming landscape just behind the screen, and night birds or bats swoop in for insects, giving the show a surreal feel. “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” is shown on a large outdoor screen at Devils Tower KOA every single night the campground is open, rain or shine. It’s located just below Devils Tower, the tallest columnar formation of its kind in the world, and it’s where Steven Spielberg filmed “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” a 1977 box office smash that set records and helped rescue Columbia Pictures from bankruptcy.ĭevils Tower was also one of the sacred places chosen by Morgan Freeman for his documentary, “The Story of God.” The campground itself is a one-of-a-kind experience. And if you jump up the next morning, you can be in Cody without traveling too hard or anything.”īut there’s more at work here than just near-perfect distance from two world-famous landmarks. And if you leave Mount Rushmore, you get here, you know, a little after lunch and you can be here all day. “So, if you leave Cody, you get here late afternoon or early evening. “We’re the perfect distance from Mount Rushmore to Yellowstone,” Zannie Driskill, who co-owns the Devils Tower KOA with her husband Ogden, told Cowboy State Daily. 1 in the national campground system for having above 90% occupancy on one-night stays during the summer season. Leashed pets are allowed in the parking lot and road, but not beyond those points.DEVILS TOWER - What was once a common hayfield is now an uncommon campground. ![]()
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