Republican Wyoming county commissioner defends Swastika Lake and slams ‘communist’ efforts to change name

State changed racist place names en masse last year

A RepublicanWyoming county commissioner is arguing that the controversially named Swastika Lake should keep its name, despite multiple proposals to rename the body of water in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest.

“Why would we remove the teaching opportunity to explain the history of the swastika, both good and bad?” Albany County commissioner Terri Jones said at a council meeting last week, according to the Laramie Reporter. “The bad was very bad. However, the good predated the bad by eons. And the good is truly good and represents hope and goodwill.”

Ms Jones said changing the name would amount to a “communist” ploy.

“We should not change names to suit sensitive people,” she added. “An educated person should be able to speak to both sides of the issue, but you must know that there are two sides of the coin to address. Limiting knowledge and removing history are the calling cards of communism. I believe that Swastika Lake should remain Swastika Lake.”

There’s no record of how the lake got its name, according to the Reporter, though the name predates the rise of the Nazi party, which appropriated the swastika symbol from its ancient Southeast Asian roots in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Other commissioners have proposed changing the lake’s name to Fortune Lake, a reference to the swastika’s original Sanskrit meaning of “good fortune” or “well-being,” while the Albany County Historical Society wants to rename the lake for Samuel Howell Knight, a renowned local geologist and paleontologist.

Because the lake sits in a national forest, federal officials will have to approve any name change.

Last month, a remote peak in Oregon’s Umpqua National Forest was renamed from Swastika Mountain to Mount Halo, in honour of Chief Halito of the Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe, a prominent 19th century indigenous leader whose village was located nearby the peak.

The mountain’s original naming also predates the Nazis, and stemmed from the name of a cattle ranch and town named Swastika in the early 1900s.

Last year, 42 Wyoming place names were changed to remove the word “squaw,” a slur for indigenous women.

As conversations about identity and racism in US history have grown more prominent in recent years, efforts are underway across the country to remove or change place names rooted in America’s white supremacist and settler-colonialist history.