Why you might be calling this Henderson mountain the wrong name
It’s one of Henderson’s most recognizable mountain peaks, but you might be calling it the wrong name.
Although many valley locals refer to the peak as Black Mountain, the peak — dotted in radio and TV towers just west of Interstate 515 — is actually unnamed.
The real Black Mountain, located roughly 10 miles southwest in the McCullough Range, is the tallest peak in that range, towering 1,600 feet above the valley.
This isn’t the only misnomer for a valley mountain. Frenchman Mountain, a prominent mountain bordering the Sunrise Manor community on Las Vegas’ east side, is commonly referred to as Sunrise Mountain, which is actually the name of a smaller mountain northeast of Frenchman.
Mark Hall-Patton, a Southern Nevada historian and former administrator at the Clark County Museum, said all of this mountain name confusion comes from Las Vegas and Henderson being full of transplants who just don’t know any better.
“Getting things wrong is something that we do on a rather regular basis here, and with people coming from elsewhere and not getting a good sort of geographical lesson for this area, that’s sort of to be expected,” Hall-Patton said.
Most people just guess what something is called based on what they’ve heard. Or, they ask their neighbor who, especially in Las Vegas, is likely also a transplant who won’t know the correct name, he said.
“These kinds of errors just get repeated, and so people start using them,” he said. “And once they start using them, it becomes sort of a common knowledge issue that, until you actually look, you go, ‘Oh, wait a minute, that’s not right.’”
The neighborhood around the unnamed peak is called Black Mountain on Google Maps, and contains Henderson’s Black Mountain Recreation Center and the Black Mountain Ranch housing development — further contributing to the peak’s name confusion.
Gamers may know the peak from the 2010 video game “Fallout: New Vegas” where Black Mountain is also misidentified as a mountain with radio towers.
Why are there so many towers?
Because of its accessibility by car and because the mountain has a more direct line of sight to the entire valley as it is not blocked by other peaks, given its position on the far eastern edge of the range, the peak is well-suited for towers, Hall-Patton said.
“All of the valley can be broadcast (to) from that point and receive the signal, so that means it’s just a very good peak to broadcast from, and they can get up and down (the mountain) to that point,” he said.
To get to the top of the real Black Mountain, hikers must embark on a 6.8-mile round trip excursion that begins at the Black Mountain Trailhead in Henderson’s Anthem neighborhood, according to the hiking website AllTrails.
At the top, after rock scrambling on a narrow trail for half a mile, you’ll find a Nevada state flag, a metal box full of pens and notepads, and two official markers embedded in stone from the National Geodetic Survey declaring the peak to be the official — and only — Black Mountain in the range.
It’s unknown whether the unnamed peak will ever receive a name, but it’s always a possibility, Hall-Patton said.
One peak in Henderson that was named as recently as 2015 is Mount Scorpion near Nevada State College, which was named with the help of congressional offices and local government entities after the college’s mascot.
For now, the peak will remain unnamed, and locals and tourists alike will likely remain confused about where the real Black Mountain actually is.
Contact Taylor Lane at tlane@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tmflane on Twitter.
