Historical Marker Program

Glass Mountains or Gloss Mountains

Major County
Location: near Cathedral Mountain trailhead in Gloss Mountain State Park
Coordinates: 36.363008, -98.579081
Material: Granite
Sponsor(s): Gloss Mountain Conservancy, Inc.
Topics: Environment/Cultural Ecology; Territorial Period, 1861–1907

The name “Glass Mountains” appeared on a map issued by the General Land Office in February 1873. Two years later, the same office issued another map that labeled them “Gloss Mountains,” thus precipitating a conflict that continues to this day. The 1875 map resulted from a survey led by an engineer named T.H. Barrett. Historiographer James Cloud is of the opinion that a draftsman copied this map and misread the “A” for an “O”. A persistent legend exists that a member of that first exploring party was British or Bostonian. This member awakened early one morning in the survey camp on the knoll located east of this point and saw the sun on the glistening clear crystals of selenite. In his long Eastern dialect he exclaimed. “Why, they look just like glaws.” The party’s cartographer simply recorded what he thought he had heard, indeed a passing error.