Mt. Stanford
Gregorys Monument
Mt. Ericsson

Fri, Jun 8, 2007

With: Matthew Holliman

Etymology
Mt. Stanford
Mt. Ericsson

Story

Photos / Slideshow

Maps: 1 2

Profile

Mt. Stanford (13,973 ft.)

Named by Bolton Brown in 1896

"The university was established in 1885 by Leland Stanford (1824-93), railroad builder, governor of California, and U. S. senator; it was named Leland Stanford Junior University in memory of Stanford's son, who had died the preceding year. Prof. Bolton C. Brown, who made the first ascent in Aug. 1896, named the peak Mount Stanford for the university. He suggested as an alternate name Stanford University Peak, if the name Mount Stanford should be declared ineligible because of another peak so named in Placer Co. However, the original Mount Stanford, which had been named by the Whitney Survey, was renamed as Castle Peak. Later, when the USGS mapped the Pioneer Basin region in 1907-09, its chief geographer, R. B. Marshall, named the four peaks of hte divide in memory of the "Big Four" magnates of hte Central Pacific Railroad: Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Collis P. Huntington, and Leland Stanford. So now there are, after all, two Mount Stanfords in the state."
- Erwin Gudde, California Place Names

"Not many college presidents have stood on the summit of a high mountain named for their institution. On August 16, 1899, President David Starr Jordan, of Stanford University, did exactly that. 'I have never seen a more magnificent mountain panorama!' he exclaimed. Dr. Jordan was well qualified to speak of mountain panoramas; some years before he had climbed the Matterhorn in Switzerland. The Stanford party, which included Mrs. Jordan and several of the University's professors, spent many pleasant days at the head of Bubb's Creek, where Dr. Jordan gave names to a number of features, including 'Ouzel Basin,' suggested by Muir's description in The Mountains of California."
- Francis Farquhar, History of the Sierra Nevada

Mt. Stanford Gregorys Monument Mt. Ericsson

Mt. Stanford (13,973 ft.)

Named by Bolton Brown in 1896

Mt. Stanford
Gregorys Monument
Mt. Ericsson