History
The mountains were part of the homeland of the Mojave people for thousands of years.
The late 18th century Spanish explorer and missionary Francisco Garcés crossed the Las Californias Mojave Desert territory with the 1774 Juan Bautista de Anza Expedition from New Spain (Mexico) to Monterey Bay in 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.
19th century pioneer travelers on the Mojave Road found springs and streams in the mountains and "thanked Divine Providence," resulting in the range receiving the present name. 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 conservation and recreation direction.
Read more about this topic: Providence Mountains
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We may pretend that we’re basically moral people who make mistakes, but the whole of history proves otherwise.”
—Terry Hands (b. 1941)
“The visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)