Names are paramount to outdoor users and travelers. This revised book, from the original 1993 edition, lists almost 2,000 place names in Colorado and tracks their originations and meanings.
Names are listed alphabetically, one name per paragraph, and anyone familiar with the "Centennial State" will find lots of intriguing information in this easy-to-read reference book.
Actually an expansion on a same-named 1977 book, this is a dictionary of place names, but has plenty of capsulized history about the towns, mountains, canyons and other titles in Colorado.
The author stresses that this book is not a comprehensive work.
"Much information about Colorado place names remains uncertain or undiscovered," he states.
Here are some examples of Colorado place name listings:
Alamo: This town in Huerfano County means "cottonwood tree" in Spanish.
Aspen: was called Ute City originally. Later named for the profuse growth of quaking aspen trees in the vicinity.
Conundrum Peak: The term refers to a puzzle or riddle and may mean some early travelers lost their way around this 14,022-foot peak. There is a nearby creek of the same name.
Denver: named for James W. Denver, former governor of Kansas Territory. Was originally two towns — "Auraria" and "Denver City Company," until the two settlements merged in 1860.
Never Summer Mountains: A location in Rocky Mountain National Park that's translated from an Arapaho Indian term that does mean "it is never summer."
Pikes Peak: Named for Gen. Zebulon Pike, who saw the 14,110-foot peak during an 1806 expedition and called it "Grand Peak." Note that the U.S. Board of Geographic Names has rules to discourage apostrophe use. (Hence why Utah has "Kings" Peak, not "King's" Peak.)
Republican Mountain: Not named for any political party, this 12,386-foot mountain was actually named after a band of the Pawnee Indian Tribe.
Rocky Mountains: came from French Canadian explorers who called it such as a reference to the "rock" or "Assiniboine" Indian Tribe (also called the "Stone Sioux") and not because the mountains were in any way rocky.
Steamboat Spring: not titled after any boat in the area, but rather from the puffing sounds emitted by one of the springs in the area. Ironically, the particular spring was destroyed soon after by railroad construction.
Wasatch: the name of a 13,555-foot mountain in San Miguel County. Named for a Ute chief who lived around 1800. The name means "blue heron" in Ute and is also the title of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah.
E-mail: lynn@desnews.com