King Mountain

King Mountain is the high point of a dry county. Upton County covers 1,241 square miles of rocky land on the Edwards Plateau, flat in the north and rolling in the south, at elevations from 2,300 to 3,000 feet. Castle Mountain lies fifteen miles north of King Mountain and Moltke Hill fifteen miles southeast. Small lakes drain toward the Middle Concho and the Pecos, rain averages only 12.7 inches a year and the growing season runs 232 days. The mountain itself is limestone and dolomite, with oak, juniper and some mesquite on its slopes.

What the plaque says

King Mountain Probably named for Guy King, rancher who drilled first water well on top of mountain about 1900. Elevation is 3,000 feet. Part of an uplift in southern Permian Basin; associated with county oil fields. Many Indian relics have been found along the Rim Rock. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mendoza Trail Museum — steps away
  A 1966 museum in a 1925 oil town, named for the Spanish officer who crossed this country in 1683 at the invitation of the Jumano, with a 1915 bungalow beside it.
• Rankin Museum (Yates Hotel) — 17 mi
  The fireproof hotel Ira Yates built beside the Orient railway depot months after oil came in on his ranch in 1926, kept as it was down to the wicker lobby furniture.
• Alley Oop Park and Iraan Museum — 24 mi
  An oil-boom town named for Ira and Ann Yates, where the creator of the caveman comic Alley Oop once worked, and a park of giant cartoon figures beside the town museum.

More markers nearby

• Early Humble Camp in Permian Basin — steps away
• McCamey Junior High School — 0.7 mi
• McCamey — 1.3 mi
• T.P. Tavern — 1.3 mi