Pikes Peak
"Tava" or "sun", is the Ute word that was given by these first people to the mountain that we now call Pikes Peak. The band of Ute people who called the Pikes Peak region their home were the "Tabeguache", meaning the "People of Sun Mountain". The Ute people first arrived in Colorado about 500 A.D., although their traditions state they were created on Pikes Peak. In the 1800s, when the Arapaho people arrived in Colorado, they knew the mountain as ""Heey-otoyoo' "" meaning "Long Mountain". Early Spanish explorers named the mountain ""El Capitán"" meaning "The Leader". American explorer Zebulon Pike named the mountain "Highest Peak" in 1806, and the mountain was later commonly known as "Pike's Highest Peak". American explorer Stephen Harriman Long named the mountain "James Peak" in honor of Edwin James who climbed to the summit in 1820. The mountain was later renamed "Pike's Peak" in honor of Pike. The name was simplified to "Pikes Peak" by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1890.
Brigadier General Albert Pike
Albert Pike (1809–1891) was a Massachusetts native who became a schoolteacher and frontiersman before settling in Arkansas. There he began teaching again and continued to write poetry, a lifelong passion. His letters to local newspapers led to a job offer as editor for the "Arkansas Advocate", a newspaper in Little Rock affiliated with the Whig Party. Pike later became a successful lawyer specializing in Native American claims against the U.S. government. He served as a captain in the Mexican–American War and resumed his legal practice following the war. In the 1850s, Pike switched his allegiance to the Know Nothing Party due to the Whig Party's reluctance to embrace slavery and sided with the Confederacy when Southern states seceded from the United States in 1861. During the Civil War, Pike's knowledge of Native Americans led to him being commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He assembled an Indian cavalry loyal to the Confederacy and led them in battle at Pea Ridge, where his poor leadership and inability to keep the cavalry engaged with the enemy was a contributing factor to the Confederate's loss. Alleged atrocities committed by his troops include the scalping of captured enemy combatants. A few months after the battle, Pike resigned from the army and resumed practicing law. Following the war, Pike settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where it was rumored he became involved with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), though no definitive evidence proves his relationship with the organization.