A Colorado mountain tied to an 1864 massacre is renamed Mount Blue Sky

By THOMAS PEIPERT
Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — A towering mountain southwest of Denver has been renamed in honor of Colorado’s Indigenous people. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted overwhelmingly Friday to change Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. The Arapaho were known as the Blue Sky People, while the Cheyenne hold an annual renewal-of-life ceremony called Blue Sky. The peak was named after John Evans, Colorado’s second territorial governor. Evans resigned after an 1864 U.S. cavalry massacre of more than 200 Arapaho and Cheyenne people at Sand Creek in what is now southeastern Colorado.