Northern Lights Tower

Rugby, North Dakota, already has one roadside landmark that people stop for, the stone cairn marking the Geographical Center of North America, and the Northern Lights Tower stands nearby as a different kind of attraction. The Pierce County Tribune reported in 2020 that visitors often mistake the tower for the monument. Rugby Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director Laurie Odden told the paper it marks nothing: "It's a sculpture. It's supposed to represent the Northern Lights."

The Prairie Village Museum describes the tower as 88½ feet of colourful steel spires dedicated to the Aurora Borealis, rising above the Highway 2 corridor near the monument and the museum. According to the Tribune, it was built in 1996 and its name was registered with the State of North Dakota in 2003. A metallic coat of paint was meant to suggest the refraction of the northern lights by day, and at night spotlights once shone on the structure to create beams reaching to the sky.