Mount Goddard, a prominent granite peak in California’s Sierra Nevada, stands along the southwestern edge of Evolution Basin in the northern part of Kings Canyon National Park. It was named for civil engineer George Henry Goddard, who surveyed the range in the 1850s, and the name was applied in 1864 by William Brewer’s California Geological Survey party after two failed climbing attempts that year. The first recorded ascent came on September 23, 1879, when Lilbourne Winchell and Louis Davis reached the summit from near Martha Lake by way of Goddard Col, a lake and chute, and the Southwest Ridge. The mountain connects early Sierra surveying with later mountaineering history.