It looms over the northern Clovis and northeast Fresno, rising around 1000 feet above the valley floor. It’s the only mountain squarely in the Fresno/Clovis urban area, but most people don’t know its name or history. The story of Owens Mountain, today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots.
First, some geography: Owens Mountain is located north of Shephard Avenue, and east of Armstrong Avenue. Highway 168 and Big Dry Creek run on the south side of the mountain, with Auberry Road and Little Dry Creek on the north side of the hill.
It was first known as Wyatt Mountain, after early rancher Frank Wyatt. Then in the 1860s, a gold miner from Millerton staked a claim on the hill, which eventually became the Fresno Copper Mine, giving us today’s Copper Avenue.
It’s not clear when the mountain became Owens Mountain, but it was likely named for early valley rancher George Owen and his family, who owned land in the area. In 1891, Owen and Clovis Cole both sold land to Marcus Pollasky for the townsite of Clovis on the new San Joaquin Valley Railroad.
In 1935, the state established a fire lookout at the summit, and named it Copper Peak. It served as an important early warning system for both fires in the foothills and also in the growing urban area of Fresno and Clovis. The lookout was decommissioned in 1980, and was destroyed in an arson fire in 1985. Today communications towers and an automated wildfire lookout occupy the peak. And a few miles away, a new road just outside KVPR's broadcast center bears the name Owens Mountain Parkway.
