Eph Hanks Tower is a 6,540-foot Wingate Sandstone summit in Capitol Reef National Park at the mouth of Capitol Gorge, rising prominently above the picnic area below its north face. It was named for Ephraim Knowlton Hanks, a Mormon pioneer born in 1826 who became the first permanent settler in the Capitol Reef area and homesteaded on Pleasant Creek with his family in 1881. His Floral Ranch is linked to accounts of sheltering polygamists on the Mormon underground railroad. The tower and surrounding landscape reflect ancient wind-blown dunes, later shaped by the Waterpocket Fold during the Laramide Orogeny within the Colorado Plateau.