Reasonable if not conclusive arguments may be made for the heating and subsequent cooling of the Basin and Range Province during middle and late Cenozoic time. It is proposed that thermal stresses developed during this time and played a role in the formation of Basin and Range structure. The analysis depends upon physical models which are surely a simplification of the actual heating and/or cooling occurring in geological environments where rock failure and faulting are influenced by regional tectonic stresses, the rock fabric, and previously induced zones of weakness. Nevertheless, the one-dimensional models which represent crustal heating by means of an increase of temperature at depth and crustal cooling in concert with overall lithospheric cooling allow an appreciation that thermal stresses developing more or less contemporaneously with heating or cooling events are of sufficient magnitude to be considered important contributions to rock failure. The thermal stresses are oriented in a manner generally consistent with observed faulting across the Basin and Range Province. It is therefore suggested that thermal stresses may have combined with regional tectonic stresses to help promote the structures observed in the Basin and Range Province.