The Providence Mountains are found 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 ...

San Bernardino County, California San Bernardino County ( ), officially the County of San Bernardino and sometimes abbreviated as S.B. County, is a County (United States), county located in the Southern California, southern portion of the U.S. state of California, and is locat ...

, U.S. The range reaches an elevation of at Edgar PeakCalifornia Mountain Atlas, (E)
/ref> and is home to the Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve in the Providence Mountains State Recreation Area, and the Mojave National Preserve.

Geography

The Providence Mountains are north of

Interstate 40 Interstate 40 (I-40) is a major east–west transcontinental Interstate Highway System, Interstate Highway in the Southeastern United States, southeastern and Southwestern United States, southwestern portions of the United States. At a leng ...

. The Little Thorne Mountains are to the northeast. The Clipper Mountains are to the southeast, and the Granite Mountains, Pisgah Crater and the Bullion Mountains are to the southwest. The Providence Mountains lie east of the small community of Kelso, east of

Ludlow Ludlow ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is located south of Shrewsbury and north of Hereford, on the A49 road (Great Britain), A49 road which bypasses the town. The town is near the conf ...

, and northwest of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

and Goffs.

Natural history

Vegetation on the lower parts of the mountains is xeric shrublands scrub habitat, composed of Creosote bush (''Larrea tridentata''), California Barrel Cactus (''Ferocactus cylindraceus''),

Joshua tree ''Yucca brevifolia'' (also known as the Joshua tree, yucca palm, tree yucca, and palm tree yucca) is a plant species belonging to the genus '' Yucca''. It is tree-like in habit, which is reflected in its common names. This monocotyledonous tre ...

s (''Yucca brevifolia''), and Mojave yucca (''Yucca schidigera''). The

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

dramatically shifts with elevations above 4000 feet to a sky island where numerous animals and plants flourish in the added moisture caught by the mountains. The plant habitat includes forests of Single-leaf Pinyon (''Pinus monophylla'') and California Juniper (''Juniperus californica''), and remnant chaparral and woodlands with Oaks (''Quercus turbinella'') and Manzanita in these higher parts of the mountains. Mitchell Caverns is home to two

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

species of insects, found nowhere else.

History

The mountains were part of the homeland of the

Mojave people Mohave or Mojave (Mojave language, Mojave: 'Aha Makhav) are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people indigenous to the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert. The Fort Mojave Indian Reservation includes territory within the bo ...

for thousands of years. The late 18th century Spanish explorer and missionary Francisco Garcés crossed the Las Californias Mojave Desert territory after leaving the 1774 Juan Bautista de Anza Expedition from

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, to

Monterey Bay Monterey Bay is a bay of the Pacific Ocean located on the coast of the U.S. state of California, south of the San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco itself is further north along the coast, by about 75 miles (120 km), accessible via California S ...

Alta California Alta California (, ), also known as Nueva California () among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with the Baja California peninsula, it had previously comprised the province of , but was made a separat ...

. Garces traveled up 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 ...

to the land of the Mohave then traveled with a party of them across the

to Alta California and referred to the Providence and New York Mountains together as the ''Sierra de Santa Coleta'', as considering them one mountain range from western Van Winkle Mountain (California) to eastern Crescent Peak (Nevada) is conceivable. Francisco Garcés crossed through Cedar Canyon, a pass between the New York and Providence Mountains on the Mohave Trail. 19th century pioneer travelers on the Mojave Road found springs and

stream A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...

s in the mountains and "thanked ''Divine Providence''," resulting in the range receiving the present name. Silver was found and the Rock Springs Mining District was established in April 1863 and the Macedonia Mining District in September 1864. Mining in several areas has continued off and on for over a century. The range became part of the Mojave National Preserve in 1994, under

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 ...

conservation and recreation direction.

References

External links

*Official '
Providence Mountains State Recreation Area website
''
Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve website
*Officia

Edgar Peak

{{authority control Mojave National Preserve Mountain ranges of the Mojave Desert Mountain ranges of Southern California Bureau of Land Management areas in California Mountain ranges of San Bernardino County, California

Geography

Natural history

History

See also

References

External links