KVIG Informative

In 1999, two Bureau of Land Management historians nominated a mountain south of Las Vegas for the National Register of Historic Places, citing ethnographic accounts stretching back to the 1920s that name it the center of creation for more than a dozen tribes. Twenty-four years later, that same mountain gave its name to Nevada’s newest national monument, and the federal government is still writing the rules for how it will be managed.

Cynthia Ellis and Stanton Rolf, both of the Bureau of Land Management’s Las Vegas Field Office, prepared the National Register of Historic Places nomination for Spirit Mountain on May 30, 1999, according to the nomination form filed with the National Park Service. The National Park Service listed the 2,214-acre property, located in Clark County near Laughlin, on Sept. 8, 1999, under reference number 99001083, according to the same federal record.

The nomination cites named ethnographic sources spanning seven decades. An account recorded by the anthropologist Kroeber in the 1920s describes the deity Mastamho creating the peak, called Avikwame, as the place where shamans receive their spiritual power. A separate 1983 account credited to researcher Stewart describes Mastamho raising up the same sacred mountain and conferring powers there. A 1935 record from researcher MacGregor documents a distinct Hualapai creation narrative centered on the mountain, involving the figures Tudjupa and Wikame. A 1994 tribal consultation record compiled by researcher Ezzo is also cited in the filing, according to the nomination form.

The nomination lists cultural affiliation with Yuman-speaking tribes, including the Mojave, Quechan, Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Halchidhoma, Cocopah and Paipai, along with the Chemehuevi, who speak a Numic language, and it records consultation with the Hopi, Moapa, Shivwits, Southern Paiute and Zuni tribes, according to the nomination form.

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President Biden signed Proclamation 10533 on March 21, 2023, establishing the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument across approximately 506,814 acres of Clark County desert surrounding the mountain, according to the proclamation’s text as published in the Federal Register. The proclamation identifies Avi Kwa Ame as the Mojave-language name for Spirit Mountain and names the Mojave, Chemehuevi, Southern Paiute, Cocopah, Halchidhoma, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Pai Pai, Quechan, Yavapai and Zuni as tribes with creation narratives or spiritual ties to the site.

The proclamation also documents evidence of Indigenous occupation in the monument area spanning more than 10,000 years and Indigenous mining activity dating to at least the late 13th century, according to the same Federal Register document. It places the monument’s management jointly under the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, with the Park Service holding primary authority over the portion that overlaps Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

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The Bureau of Land Management’s Las Vegas Field Office, the same office that nominated the mountain for historic listing in 1999, is now the lead agency drafting the monument’s management plan; its most recently posted planning update is dated January 2025, according to the bureau’s Avi Kwa Ame National Monument website. A quarter-century after Ellis and Rolf filed the paperwork calling this mountain the center of creation for more than a dozen tribes, the federal government that once treated it as a line on a historic registry now manages it as one of the largest protected landscapes in Nevada.