CLEAR CREEK, Colo. — A group in Colorado is seeking to revert the name of Mount Blue Sky to Mount Evans, arguing the decision to scrap the name of the former territorial governor from the iconic peak was ideologically driven.
According to our news partners at The Gazette, advance Colorado on Wednesday submitted a petition to the Trump administration to restore the iconic mountain's previous name.
“Back in 2023, a 128-year-old Colorado mountain was renamed based on a false record and fraudulent process," said Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado. "We have requested that President Trump correct this wrong by restoring the name Mount Evans."
Fields also clarified his group is not opposed to naming another mountain to honor the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes — just not the peak previously known as Mount Evans.
"We suggest a suitable alternative based on historical facts,” he said.
Giving the mountain its previous name is proper, given that the former governor was one of the most consequential figures in Colorado and U.S. western history, said the group, which describes itself in its petition to the Trump administration as an organization working to "reverse the radical progressive policies destroying Colorado."
The group said "progressive special interest groups" pushed renaming the mountain in 2023 based on a "false claim" that the territorial governor was responsible for the Sand Creek Massacre.
In its petition, Advance Colorado insisted that historical records have demonstrated that Evans played no role in the massacre, citing a report from Northwestern University that the group described as exonerating the former governor.
"No known evidence indicates that John Evans helped plan the Sand Creek Massacre or had any knowledge of it in advance," said the report from the university, whose founders included Evans. "The extant evidence suggests that he did not consider the Indians at Sand Creek to be a threat and that he would have opposed the attack that took place."
The report also said Evans was among several people, who, "in serving a flawed and poorly implemented federal Indian policy, helped create a situation that made the Sand Creek Massacre possible."
Evans had denied any role in the massacre, in which hundreds of Colorado militia troops, led by Col. John Chivington, attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children and elders on the banks of Sand Creek in Kiowa County on Nov. 29, 1864. More than 230 tribal members were slaughtered.
An investigation resulted in President Andrew Johnson demanding Evans' resignation. Evans lost the governorship, while Chivington could not be dishonorably discharged, as his enlistment had already expired that September.
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially renamed the peak to Mount Blue Sky in September 2023, acting on the recommendation of the Colorado's Geographic Naming Advisory Board.
The state body's recommendation went to Gov. Jared Polis, who forwarded it to the federal naming board.
The renaming vote was held for six months because of objections from the Northern Cheyenne of Lame Deer, Montana, the original Colorado tribe that vehemently opposed the name of Mount Blue Sky. The phrase "blue sky" is part of the sacred Tribal Arrow Ceremony and, thus, the Northern Cheyenne believe it would be "sacrilegious" for it to be spoken in common language, the tribe had argued.
Northern Cheyenne tribal leaders instead advocated to rename Colorado's most famous peak to "Mount Cheyenne-Arapaho."
At the federal board's 2023 meeting, Chris Hammon of the U.S. Geological Survey said there was "overwhelming agreement" that the name had to change. He added he would have preferred consensus from the tribal parties but noted that wasn't going to happen.
Colorado's two Democratic U.S. senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, backed the name change.
“We must better face the dark history of the Sand Creek atrocities by honoring the lives that were lost,” Hickenlooper then said. “Renaming one of Colorado’s tallest peaks to honor the Arapaho and Cheyenne people is an important step forward.”
The Gazette's Luige Del Puerto contributed to this web story.
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