Published 2023-09-16 23:10
A roughly 4,300 meter high mountain southwest of Denver in Colorado, USA, is getting a new old name, part of a national effort to honor the country’s indigenous people.
The United States Committee on Geographic Names voted overwhelmingly to change Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky. The name change was made at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples and was approved by Colorado Governor Jared Polis.
The name Mount Evans came from John Evans, Colorado’s second governor, and first appeared on official maps in 1903. Evans resigned after overlooking a massacre of hundreds of people, mostly Native women and children, by Colonel John Civington in 1864.
The name change is a “huge step” in the healing process, and brings “honor to a monumental and majestic mountain,” Arapaho and Cheyenne Governor Reggie Wassana said after the vote.