Mount Pierce, sometimes called Pierce Mountain or Monument Peak at 3179 ft (949 m), is the highest point of the Monument Ridge which is part of the Coast Range in

Humboldt County, California Humboldt County () is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 136,463. The county seat is Eureka. Humboldt County comprises the Eureka–Arcata–Fortuna, California Micropolitan Statistica ...

. It was named after U.S. President

Franklin Pierce Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. He was a northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity ...

(1804–69). The summit offers a wide view of a wide area in Humboldt, Mendocino,

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God the F ...

and Del Norte counties north to the state of

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

. Due to the high visibility of the top of Mount Pierce and the inability to see

Mount Diablo Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County, California, Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton, California, Clayton and northeast of Danville, Califo ...

from the northwestern corner of the state, a new

principal meridian A principal meridian is a meridian used for survey control in a large region. Canada The Dominion Land Survey of Western Canada took its origin at the First (or Principal) Meridian, located at 97°27′28.41″ west of Greenwich, just west of Win ...

, the Humboldt meridian was established in 1853Part 5: Public Land Survey System Standards for USGS and USDA Forest Service Single Edition Quadrangle Maps (5/03)
/ref> intersecting the survey base line at the summit of Mount Pierce which still governs the surveys in the northwestern corner of California. ''Plane Surveying for Use in the Classroom and Field'' By William Galt Raymond
/ref> The summit of Mount Pierce was marked with a tower of iron bars, now gone, but currently noted by an array of antennas, a geodetic marker and a plaque, placed on October 4, 2003, on the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the Humboldt Meridian Initial Point by Deputy Surveyor Henry Washington on October 6, 1853. The center of the Initial Point is marked by a standard US Coast and Geodetic Survey triangulation station disc, stamped “Mt. Pierce 1928.”

Notes

External links

Humboldt Meridian

Mount Pierce, California - Peakbagger
Mountains of Humboldt County, California Mountains of Northern California {{HumboldtCountyCA-geo-stub