Castle Mountains National Monument is a

U.S. National Monument In the United States, a national monument is a protected area that can be created from any land owned or controlled by the Federal government of the United States, federal government by Presidential proclamation (United States), proclamation ...

located in the eastern

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert (; ; ) is a desert in the rain shadow of the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and Transverse Ranges in the Southwestern United States. Named for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous Mohave people, it is located pr ...

and northeastern

San Bernardino County San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is located within the Inland Empire area. As of th ...

, in the state of

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

.Whitehouse.gov: Presidential Proclamation − Establishment of the Castle Mountains National Monument
February 12, 2016.
February 11, 2016, by Louis Sahagun; accessed February 14, 2016. The park protects 20,920 acres, located between the interstates I−15 and I−40, and northwest of the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

Geography

The national monument protects a section of the Castle Mountains, a range located in San Bernardino County and

Clark County, Nevada Clark County is the most populous County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Nevada with 2,265,461 residents as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county is the location of the state's three largest cities, Las Vegas (t ...

. The range lies south and east of the

New York Mountains The New York Mountains are a small mountain range found in northeastern San Bernardino County in California, USA. The range's northeastern area lies in southeastern Nevada. The range lies just south of the small community of Ivanpah, and north ...

, southwest of

Searchlight A searchlight (or spotlight) is an apparatus that combines an extremely luminosity, bright source (traditionally a carbon arc lamp) with a mirrored parabolic reflector to project a powerful beam of light of approximately parallel rays in a part ...

and west of Cal-Nev-Ari, Nevada. The range lies at the northeastern end of

Lanfair Valley Lanfair Valley is located in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California near the Nevada state line. The valley is bounded on the north by the New York Mountains and Castle Mountains (California), Castle Mountains, on the east by the Piute Range, ...

and reaches in elevation at the summit of Hart Peak and 5580 ft at Linder Peak. The mountains lie in a southwest-northeasterly direction. The Piute Range lies to the southeast. Castle Mountains National Monument is surrounded on three sides by the

Mojave National Preserve Mojave National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in the Mojave Desert of San Bernardino County, California, US, between Interstate 15 in California, Interstate 15 and Interstate 40. The preserve was established October 31, ...

, managed by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

. It surrounds the Castle Mountain Mine Area, an

open pit Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique that extracts rock or minerals from the earth. Open-pit mines are used when deposits of commercially useful ore or ...

gold mine Gold mining is the extraction of gold by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. The expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface has led to more comple ...

in the southern Castle Mountains owned by Canadian NewCastle Gold Ltd., who can excavate nearly 10 million tons of ore through 2025, though due to low gold prices mining has been suspended since 2001.Marketwired.com: "NewCastle's Gold Project not included in New Castle Mountain Monument"
. accessed February 14, 2016. The national monument proclamation states that after any such mining and reclamation are completed, or after 10 years if no mining occurs, the Federal land in the 8,340 acre Castle Mountain Mine Area is to be transferred to the National Park Service.

Designation and management

It was designated by

President Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. Ob ...

on February 12, 2016, along with

Mojave Trails National Monument Mojave Trails National Monument is a large U.S. National Monument located in the state of California between Interstate 15, Interstates 15 and Interstate 40, 40. The park was created to preserve a wide variety of geological and cultural features i ...

and

Sand to Snow National Monument Sand to Snow National Monument is a U.S. National Monument located in San Bernardino County and northern Riverside County, Southern California. It protects diverse montane and desert habitats of the San Bernardino Mountains, southern Mojave Dese ...

also in

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 ...

. Of the three it is the only one to be managed by the

, with the other two being placed under the control of the

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

and/or the

United States Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

.USDA Forest Service: Sand to Snow National Monument webpage
(71,000 acres).

References

External links

National Park Service: official Castle Mountains National Monument websiteCampaign for the California Desert.org: Castle Mountains National Monument
— ''natural and cultural features''.
Site location of Castle Mountain Mine, adjacent south of Hart, California, at south region of Castle Mountains
{{authority control Lanfair Valley National Park Service national monuments in California Parks in San Bernardino County, California Protected areas of the Mojave Desert Protected areas established in 2016 2016 establishments in California National monuments designated by Barack Obama

Geography

Designation and management

See also

References

External links