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Reader Participation Day: What National Park Place Names Should Be Changed?

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 Aztecs had nothing to do with the ruins at Aztec Ruins National Monument. NPS photo.

Among the many thousands of named places in America's National Park System are quite a few that could reasonably be given more appropriate names.  Indeed, there are even some zingers among the unit designations of the 397 national parks. 

Two examples of inappropriate place names in our National Park System leap to my mind almost unbidden.  If the Ohio Congressional delegation can be made to sit still for it, Mt. McKinley in Denali National Park and Preserve should be officially renamed Denali, which is what everybody in Alaska calls it.  New Mexico's Aztec Ruins National Monument, a place in which no Aztec ever set foot, should be renamed to honor the Ancestral Puebloans.

OK, it's your turn.  What renamings would you like to see?

By the way, this is not necessarily idle thinking. Place names in long-standing public use are seldom changed, but it does happen from time to time.  The federal arbiter for such decisions, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, approves about 85% of the 250 naming proposals it receives in a typical year. Congress has renamed national parks from time to time too, as when Custer Battlefield National Monument was redesignated Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument back in 1991.

Comments

Josiah Whitney was a complete ass. Rename Mt. Whitney after John Muir.
Now, because he already has a mountain right nearby named after him, we'll have to call it "Mt. Muir 2"


As you already mention Aztec Ruins, how about Montezumas Castle? For it has nothing to do with Montezuma.


Neither does drinking water in Mexico, but that does not stop us from using the name Montezuma!


Devils tower.  How about something with a native name instead, as devils tower was named because of a mistake in translation, (or so I heard).


Oh for pete's sake.  Leave it all alone! 


I think something, somewhere should be named for Kurt.  It wouldn't have to be anything major, just something to honor his dedication and hard work.  Perhaps Repanshek Butte or even Repanshek Lane.  Maybe a cliff in Canyonlands, a hill in Great Basin, or a tiny glacier on a barren mountain in Alaska.  There must be a short hiking path, small mound, or historic cabin somewhere in our national parks that isn't yet named.  Any man who vacations in Wheatland, Wyoming, deserves to be honored.


Personally I'd like to see some of the ridiculously long names reduced down to something that is easy enought to commit to memory. Maybe a limit of four words before the park designation.

Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument
President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site

I mean - couldn't they just change the last one to President Clinton Birthplace NHS?


What an absolutely birdbrained idea.
Imagine the cost of changing park names. New entrance and road signs, printing broucures, changing websites, and on and on....
Oh yea, sorry, thats right, we are not supposed to care about how our tax dollars are wasted, right?
Ok if we really try, I think we can find something more productive to do with our limited  national park dollars?


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