Box Springs Mountain is the highest peak in the Box Springs Mountains range, standing tall. The mountain is in northwestern Riverside County,

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

Geography

The mountain is east of downtown Riverside, and northwest of Moreno Valley, a partial border between the two large cities. Most of the mountain is part of the Box Springs Mountain Reserve, a park operated by the county.

UC Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in ...

manages the Box Springs Reserve adjacent to its campus, part of the University of California Natural Reserve System. It protects a transitional

ecotone An ecotone is a transitional area between two plant communities, where these meet and integrate. Examples include areas between grassland and forest, estuaries and lagoon, freshwater and sea water etc. An ecotone may be narrow or wide, and it ma ...

zone between

coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...

and chamise

chaparral Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intens ...

. Because the mountain is one of the more prominent features in the

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (commonly abbreviated as the IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County and Or ...

(Riverside-San Bernardino urbanized area), the summit is used for numerous telecommunication towers, including transmission towers for the KOLA 99.9 and KGGI 99.1 radio stations.

History

Box Springs Mountain is said to have gotten its name during the 1880s. Teamsters with horse-drawn wagons would stop at a natural spring in an arroyo of the range to water their horses. A teamster surrounded it with a box to maintain water access, later giving the spring, Box Springs, and the range their names.Holtzclaw, Kenneth M
Images of America: Moreno Valley
Arcadia Publishing, 2007. . The letter "C" is embedded on the Riverside-facing side. The "Big C" was built in 1957, mostly by

students. E.L. Yeager donated the materials for it. The "C" is approximately 1,500 feet above the UCR campus, and was the world's largest poured-concrete block letter, 132 feet high by 70 feet wide. The "C" is often vandalized with

graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...

. The letter "M" was embedded on the Moreno Valley side of the mountain in 1966 as a symbol of Moreno Valley High School which was then in the town of Sunnymead. The City of Moreno Valley was officially incorporated as a municipality on December 3, 1984 comprising Sunnymead, Edgemont and the little town of Moreno. The mountain with "M" were included on the new city logo. During the first week of December 2009 Moreno Valley and

Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (SCE), the largest subsidiary of Edison International, is the primary electric utility company for much of Southern California. It provides 15 million people with electricity across a service territory of approximate ...

lit up the "M" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of cityhood.

Natural history

Box Springs Mountain provides wildlife habitat in the fast-growing Inland Empire Metropolitan Area, with populations of snakes, lizards, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, deer and burros, some of which wander into the populace below. There are several large eucalyptus trees that were planted at its base that originally marked sources of water. The mountain is susceptible to

wildfire A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

s which char the hillsides and pose a danger to residences at the base of the mountain. However, they are a natural part of

fire ecology Fire ecology is a scientific discipline concerned with the effects of fire on natural ecosystems. Many ecosystems, particularly prairie, savanna, chaparral and coniferous forests, have evolved with fire as an essential contributor to habitat vit ...

in the chaparral and woodland natural habitats.

References

External links

*
Google Maps Satellite view of Box Springs Mountain showing the large painted concrete letter "C"

Google Maps Satellite view of Box Springs Mountain showing the large painted letter "M"
{{Geographic location , Centre =Box Springs Mountains , North = Redlands , Northeast = Yucaipa , East = Yucaipa , Southeast = Mentone , South = Moreno Valley , Southwest = Riverside , West = Grand Terrace , Northwest = Loma Linda , image = Mountains of Riverside County, California Geography of Riverside, California Mountains of Southern California

Geography

History

Natural history

See also

References

Further reading

External links