Grand Canyon boaters putting into the Colorado River commonly do so about 15 miles downriver from Glen Canyon Dam, near the Arizona-Utah border.
In 1922, delegates from the seven Colorado River Basin states chose this site to demarcate divisions of the upper and lower basins. The compact they created calls it ‘Lee Ferry’.
Recently I mentioned Lee Ferry in a story I wrote about the Colorado River wrangling. A reader sought to correct my perceived solecism. It was, he said, ‘Lees Ferry.’
The National Park Service, the Sierra Club, and innumerable others also call it Lees Ferry or, sometimes, Lee’s Ferry. A friend who has rafted the Grand Canyon many times tells me that the original ferry site is about a mile upstream from the put-in site for boaters.
The Lee was John D., who was dispatched to the river in 1870 by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to create a ferry, the better to expedite colonization of Navajo lands. Lee had 19 wives and has descendants that include Mike Lee, a current U.S. senator from Utah, as well as former senators (Gordon Smith of Oregon, Mark Udall of Colorado and Tom Udall of New Mexico) and two U.S. representatives (Stewart and Morris Udall, both of Arizona).
Boaters putting into the Colorado River to float down the Grand Canyon commonly do so at Lees Ferry in Arizona, which is to be easiily confused with the old Lee Ferry about a mile upstream. Photo/Allen Best
What we call places can be confusing, maybe even maddening to grammatical purists. The U.S. Board of Geographic Names accommodates apostrophes very rarely. Writing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Henry Brean called it a “systematic campaign of institutional deprivation” that dated to creation of the federal agency in 1890. Since then, he reported, the board has allowed apostrophes in geographic features only five times, one of them being Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Two are in the West, but neither at the former ferry site in Arizona.
As such, Colorado has several mountains named after 19th century figures: Ulysses S. Grant Peak in the San Juans, Kit Carson Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Range, and Longs Peak in the Front Range. None have implied possessives.
By the same reasoning, travelers on Interstate 70 may traverse Vail Pass. It was named after Charles D. Vail, the boss of the state highway department in the late 1930s. Before, if it was called anything, it had been Pottery Pass because of shards left by indigenous campers that were noticed by a visiting zoologist in 1887.
Also in Colorado we have Hagerman and Berthoud passes, named after two 19th century railroaders, James J. Hagerman and Edward L. Berthoud.
What constitutes a pass? That also seems subject to confusion. To me, it is a low point in a geographic barrier. It is the highest place on your journey but the lowest place to cross that barrier.
Local usage has inverted the two in some places. Those who travel on the road around the side of Battle Mountain between Minturn and Red Cliff over time have tended to call it Battle Mountain Pass. It is, if anything, a shelf road.
The San Juans have a parallel. The Molas Divide between Durango and Silverton that I grew up hearing about has become, according to a highway sign, Molas Pass. The highway, though, does not cross a low point.
The saddle in the Gore Range that we today call Vail Pass was, for a time at least, called Pottery Pass, because of shards found there, or Black Gore Pass, because of the creek that flowed westward from the summit. Photo/Allen Best
I wonder what President Donald Trump might do with Colorado’s geography if he decides to scrap history. He has some personal history here. His first marriage came apart in Aspen during 1989 when his first wife, Ivana, confronted his mistress, Marla, who soon became his second wife.
With his flourish of a presidential pen, Trump has also discarded 400 years of history at the Gulf of Mexico, recasting it as the Gulf of America. In Alaska, Trump discarded local wishes favoring Denali to honor McKinley, a president elected with aid of late 19th century robber barons.
How might Trump bull through the closet of geographic names in Colorado? Might San Luis Peak become the anglicized St. Louis Peak? Or Blanca Peak recast as White Mountain? La Plata River the Silver River?
Heck, why not just rename the Colorado River? Colorado is a Spanish name, after all. And by extension, rename the state of its origin? A blue state politically would become Red.
Ego must also be considered. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names has long refused to name geographic features after living people. Trump, though, could usurp that. Given his predilection for self-aggrandizement, he would surely settle on the peaks west of Leadville, the highest and the biggest, Elbert and Massive to become the new Mount Trump.
As for Wyoming, I am reminded that Trump is at heart a real estate guy. The Devils Tower, shown below?
I can see the sign now… Trump Tower National Monument.
At BigPivots.com, Allen Best analyzes the energy and water transitions in Colorado but sometimes strays into the realms of agriculture, transportation and, well, geography, too.
Allen Best publishes the e-journal Big Pivots, which chronicles the energy transition in Colorado and beyond.