For more than 100 years, federal officials have held onto the name of Kit Carson to denote one of Colorado’s fourteeners in Saguache County.

Officially, Kit Carson’s name has been attached to the mountain that locals refer to as Crestone Peak since 1906. 

And, since that year, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names has affirmed several times the decision to keep Kit Carson’s name, the most recent in 2011. 

On Thursday, the Colorado Geographic Naming Advisory Board began its examination of the history of the mountain’s name, following a request to consider changing it.  

At 14,165 feet, Kit Carson Mountain is Colorado’s 24th highest fourteener. The mountain is actually made up of three peaks. The two lower peaks already have names: Challenger Point, adopted by the federal group in 1985, and Columbia Point, adopted in 2003.

The third peak is officially unnamed.

But the proposal for a different name submitted in 2020 to the federal board accused Kit Carson, then a U.S. army officer, of a bloody campaign against the Apache and Navajo people. 

Scott Ehrsman, the town manager for Crestone, was taken back when he learned a name change is in the works. He said he plans to bring the issue to his town council when it meets later this month.

Saguache County commissioners, meanwhile, have taken no position on the name change. 

The proposal to take Kit Carson’s name off the mountain was submitted by Ryan Clement of Littleton, who suggested going back to a previous name, Frustum Peak, one of five names the mountain has gone by over the last century.

In addition to Kit Carson Peak, Kit Carson Mountain, Crestone and Frustum, it’s also been known as Haystack Mountain.

One thing was clear during Thursday’s meeting – Frustum is not acceptable to the naming board.

Frustum is not a proper name. It’s a geometry term that refers to a flat-topped cone or pyramid. The mountain has been identified either as Frustrum or Frustum in several books published over the last 50 years, including in a 1970 book on Colorado Fourteeners.

The U.S. Forest Service supports changing the name, but it isn’t clear what name it prefers as an alternative, the state group was told Thursday. The Navajo Nation also fully supports renaming it, but the tribe also did not indicate a preference for which name.

“Namesakes are powerful, especially when they bestow honor and legitimacy to people like Kit Carson,” the tribe reportedly told the Forest Service.

The Colorado naming group also asked about the federal board’s decision from 2011 to keep the name as is, despite several attempts to change it, including to Mount Crestone.

Federal documentation on the name change request shows that, in 2008, a proposal was submitted to the board to change the name of Kit Carson Mountain to Mount Crestone. The documents noted that “most locals in Crestone referred to the peak as Crestone Peak and that the name Kit Carson Mountain applied to a different mountain to the east.”

The proponent of that change also suggested naming the third, unnamed peak Tranquility Peak.

In 2010, another proposal was submitted to apply the name Kit Carson Peak to the same unnamed summit. In 2011, the federal group reaffirmed the Kit Carson name. No reason was cited for that decision.

Jenny Runyon, a liaison from the federal board to the Colorado group, acknowledged the confusion about just what’s getting renamed, and whether the mountain’s name refers to a single peak or a larger range.

Board members hinted they might want to submit a name on their own, which could include Navajo Peak. The name Crestone Peak did not come up as an alternative during the discussion.

The only thing that was clear about Thursday’s discussion is that a lot more research needs to be done.

Clement, who proposed the name change, did not attend Thursday’s meeting. He could not be reached for comment.