The Hieroglyphic Mountains are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

located in central

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

. The Hieroglyphics roughly straddle the border between Maricopa and

Yavapai The Yavapai ( ) are a Native American tribe in Arizona. Their Yavapai language belongs to the Upland Yuman branch of the proposed Hokan language family. Today Yavapai people are enrolled in the following federally recognized tribes: * Fort ...

counties A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

and form an effective physical barrier northwest of the

Phoenix Metropolitan Area The Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the Salt River Valley, metro Phoenix, or The Valley, is the largest metropolitan statistical area in the Southwestern United States, with its largest principal city being the c ...

. Due to their proximity to Phoenix and its environs, the mountains offer a number of outdoor recreational activities. The Hieroglyphic Mountains were named in an apparent confusion between

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

ian

hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct characters.I ...

and the

petroglyphs A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

found in the area.

History

Early human settlement in the Hieroglyphic mountains is sparse at best. Existing petroglyphs indicate that the area had been settled, or at least visited, by Native Americans prior to the 19th century. A

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

strike on 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 ...

near Yuma in 1862 created local interest in prospecting, and the Hieroglyphics were among many of the local mountain ranges visited by prospectors during this time period, but the ruggedness of the terrain and the scarcity of water largely discouraged permanent settlement. In the early 19th century, local

Indians had discovered a natural

hot spring A hot spring, hydrothermal spring, or geothermal spring is a Spring (hydrology), spring produced by the emergence of Geothermal activity, geothermally heated groundwater onto the surface of the Earth. The groundwater is heated either by shallow ...

in the mountains, treating the location as a sort of "demilitarized zone" where all were welcome to come and treat their wounds. The springs were discovered by

US Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

Colonel Charles Craig in 1867 while pursuing a group of Yavapais through the mountains. The group named the spring Castle Springs for the castellated appearance of the surrounding mountains. While most sources credit Craig with the discovery, some sources claim that the springs were first discovered by a gold miner in 1874. Ongoing fighting between the US Army and the Yavapai tribes would discourage further development of the area until the 1880s when the springs and the adjacent land were purchased by Frank Murphy for the construction of a health resort. The resort was completed in 1896 and the newly renamed Castle Hot Springs were heavily advertised to potential clients. During the resort's heyday in the 1920s it was extremely popular and was visited by celebrities such as

Zane Grey Pearl Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 – October 23, 1939) was an American author and dentist. He is known for his popular adventure novels and stories associated with the Western genre in literature and the arts; he idealized the American frontier ...

, as well as famous families such as the

Rockefeller family The Rockefeller family ( ) is an American Industrial sector, industrial, political, and List of banking families, banking family that owns one of the world's largest fortunes. The fortune was made in the History of the petroleum industry in th ...

. The resort was also used by the United States military as a rehabilitation center from 1943–1944 to treat injured veterans of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Future president

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...

spent 3 months at the resort during this time period to recover from his wounds. The resort continued to be popular until it was heavily damaged in a fire in 1976. In 1928 a dam was constructed on the

Agua Fria River The Agua Fria River (Spanish for "cold water") is a long intermittent stream which flows generally south from east-northeast of Prescott in the U.S. state of Arizona. Prescott draws much of its municipal water supply from the upper Agua Fria ...

where it passes through the mountain range, creating Lake Pleasant. The lake was primarily used as an agricultural storage facility, but with the creation of the

Central Arizona Project The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a 336 mi (541 km) diversion canal in Arizona in the southern United States. The aqueduct diverts water from the Colorado River at the Bill Williams Wildlife Refuge south portion of Lake Havasu n ...

in 1973 the lake became a permanent water storage facility and an important recreational center. The dam was replaced in 1993, increasing the size of the lake.

Geography

The Hieroglyphic Mountains run primarily east to west along the border between Maricopa and Yavapai counties. The Agua Fria River is the primary waterway in the region, passing through the southeastern portion of the range. The Buckhorn Mountains are a smaller range located within the Hieroglyphics, and contain the range's highest points including Crater Benchmark, in elevation. Other mountains located within the range are: * White Picacho * Garfias Mountain * Hellgate Mountain * Governors Peak The range is bounded, roughly, by the Agua Fria River to the east, the Bradshaw Mountains to the north, and the Wickenburg Mountains to the west, or the

Hassayampa River The Hassayampa River (Yavapai language, Yavapai: Hasaya:mvo or ʼHasayamcho:) is an intermittent river, the headwaters of which are just south of Prescott, Arizona, and flows mostly south towards Wickenburg, Arizona, Wickenburg, entering the Gila ...

if the Wickenburg Mountains are considered a part of the Hieroglyphics range.

Protected areas

The range is home to the Hells Canyon Wilderness, a wilderness area maintained by the Bureau of Land Reclamation.

References

External links

Hells Canyon Wilderness
{{Authority control Arizona transition zone mountain ranges Mountain ranges of the Sonoran Desert Mountain ranges of Maricopa County, Arizona Mountain ranges of Yavapai County, Arizona Mountain ranges of Arizona

History

Geography

Protected areas

See also

References

External links