For some time now, every morning when I go to work and every evening when I come home, I look to the north east to see the tall and pointed mountain, and the phrase, “talk to the mountain”, pops into my head. I do talk to her from time to time; I suppose to find answers, guidance, comfort and peace. She is always there, never fading, never judging; a solid and stoic figure, like a guardian over the valley, and it always makes me happy to see her. For years I knew her as Squaw Peak.
While the mountain may have been called different names by different tribes, she was originally known as "Chpa'aqn" by the local tribes. When the French trappers began to hunt and trap this area, they called it “Squaw’s Tit”.
As early as 1863, Captain John Mullan referred to it as “Skiotah Peak”, and in 1918 that name was made official by the Board of Geographic Names. One year later, the name was overturned and the mountain was officially named “Squaw Peak”, and the name Squaw Peak has appeared on Federal maps since 1959 and on County maps since 1958.
Native Americans all across the country have long tried to change the names of many locations throughout the U.S. with the name “squaw”, as to them it is a very derogatory word (basically meaning “vagina”, which was basically all the Indian women were to the French trappers). Somewhere between 1999 and 2002, after a long and arduous campaign, the the native people won their battle, and the name of the mountain was changed to Chpa'aqn.
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