Yesterday I learned that what was once Mount Evans in Colorado is now known as Mount Blue Sky. Located in Idaho Springs, Rocky Mountains, Front Range, 60 miles west of Denver.

The mountain was renamed In September 2023 to honor the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, who were known as the “Blue Sky People” and hold an annual renewal-of-life ceremony called Blue Sky.

John Evans for whom the mountain was originally named, was the Colorado territorial governor from 1862 to 1865 and was linked to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, where U.S. soldiers attacked and killed Cheyenne and Arapaho people, including women and children. 

According to the National Park Service, The Sand Creek Massacre maintains its status as one of the most emotionally charged and controversial events in American history.

The Sand Creek Massacre was the deadliest day in Colorado’s history, and it changed Cheyenne and Arapaho people forever. At sunrise on November 29, 1864, the US Army (A 675-man force of the Third Colorado Cavalry) attacked a camp of mostly women, children, and elders on Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado. The soldiers murdered more than 230 peaceful people.

My photos from a trip to Colorado in June 2016 to visit my son and his wife. You can drive to the top an it is a spectacular drive.