As an ardent opponent on renaming the Gore Range, it is heartening to know that the Vail Town Council has joined a growing list of the governmental entities of Jackson County, Eagle County and Grand County that won’t support this foolish renaming idea as proposed by a former Summit County commissioner.

The Gore Range is part of the western heritage of the Eagle and Summit county areas, and its name should not be erased nor its history altered at the expense of another with the fabricated Nuchu name that has never before been applied to these mountains.

The ramifications of changing the longstanding Gore Range name of some 150 years that encompasses about 12 jurisdictions would be enormous, costly and confusing. The renaming idea is more of an agenda item of a small group that is not beneficial to anyone else at large.

I am confident that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which has the authority in these matters, will do likewise in opposing this idea based on its “Principles, Policies and Procedures” manual that guides its decisions and that the proponent should read.

And that decision will not be based on the frivolous notions in the news article that Lord St. George Gore was a “bad guy” who “burned 30 wagons of supplies rather than sell them” and therefore was “not in our view an appropriate name” nor of the Utes being “generous” and “doing snow dances in Vail’s first season” as justifications for renaming.