Mount Evans Has Been Renamed ‘Mount Blue Sky’

Mount Evans, named after the former territorial Governor John Evans who authorized the indiscriminate murder of Native Americans more than 150 years ago, has a new name. 

The U.S. Board of Geographic Names voted to rename Mount Evans to “Mount Blue Sky”. The new name honors both the Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples. The former are known as the “Blue Sky people,” and the latter have a ceremony each year called “Blue Sky.”

In 2021, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board renamed Chinaman Gulch in Chaffee County to Yan Sing Gulch, which means “resilience” in Chinese.