Wickersham, J: Is It "Mt. Tacoma" Or "Rainier?"

Excerpt from Is It "Mt. Tacoma" Or "Rainier?": What Do History and Tradition Say?

In May, 1792, Vancouver entered the Straits of de Fuca and cast anchor in Discovery Bay, the Port Quadra of the Spaniards. Leaving his vessels here to repair, he explored what we now call Admiralty Inlet and Puget Sound in small boats. As the little ¿eet rounded the long sand point and coasted down into Port Townsend Bay, Vancouver records that a very re markable high, round mountain, covered with snow, apparently at the southern extremity of the distant range of snowy mountains before noticed, bore S. 45 E. Later on, while in the Canal de Caamano, of the Spaniards, in speaking of the range of mountains now known as the Cascades, he says At its northern extremity, Mount Baker bore by compass N. 22 E. The round, snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity, and which, after my friend, Rear Admiral Rainier, I distinguished by the name of Mount Rainier bore N. 42 E.

And thus, at a distance of over one hundred miles, Vancouver named this grand white-capped summit after a foreigner who represented nothing to our American civilization, and who not only never saw the mountain bearing his name, but who never saw the continent upon which it is so conspicuous a land mark. Vancouver held no communication with the In dians, and seemed to have had the greatest contempt for them, and madeno effort to ascertain the names, if any they had, for the rivers, mountains, bays, and other natural features of this virgin world.

At every turn he fastened the name Of an obscure friend (whose only claim to this high honor was an acquaintance with Vancouver) to some prominent feature in the Puget Sound landscape. Out of this medley the name of Rainier was thus bestowed by him on the most perfect cone in that long line of extinct volcanoes, standing cold and lifeless, in the great Continental range. Vancouver explored and named Puget Sound after his lieutenant, Peter Puget, and then sailed away to Nootka, never again to see the points upon which he so recklessly ¿ung the names of his unknown friends; and this is the history of the name Of Mount Rainier.

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