MOUNT LOCKE. Mount Locke, the site of the University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory, is located in the Davis Mountains nine miles northwest of Fort Davis in central Jeff Davis County (at 30°40' N, 104°01' W). It rises to an elevation of 6,800 feet above sea level, some 1,400 feet above State Highway 118, two miles to the south. The peak was unnamed in 1932, when the decision was made to locate the observatory there; it was subsequently named after G. S. Locke, an early rancher in the area. Its shallow, stony soils support Emory and western gray oak, western yellow-leaf and piñon pine, and madrone.