Chinamans Canyon should be renamed Toisan Canyon, state geographic naming board recommends

The 2.2-mile-long valley in Las Animas County northwest of Trinidad carrying the derogatory “Chinaman” term should be renamed, Colorado’s Geographic Naming Advisory Board unanimously voted Thursday.

Board members accepted a proposal to change Chinamans Canyon to Toisan Canyon — a province in southern China where a majority of Chinese immigrants who came to the United States in the 1800s hailed from, many of them working on railroads and in mines across the country, the application for the name change stated.

Peggy Lore, representing Colorado Asian Pacific United, submitted the proposal to “recognize the Chinese who were an integral part of the history of Colorado but who, with few exceptions, have remained faceless and nameless,” according to the proposal.

Her proposal, submitted Feb. 6, 2022, led to the board’s vote on Thursday. Gov. Jared Polis created the state board in 2020, and it’s tasked with providing recommendations on name change proposals to him to send to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

Lore wrote in the proposal that the Chinese men who worked under difficult conditions in the mines and and on the Transcontinental Railroad weren’t recorded or credited for their work, and after they finished work on the railroad, they dispersed across the country, including to Colorado. Animosity toward Chinese immigrants continued to grow, driving them out of the places where they had immigrated, yet the derogatory use of “Chinaman” indicated their presence in the state.

“Chinese who lived, worked and died in these parts of Colorado remained nameless,” the proposal stated. “Records were not kept of most of these people. They were not buried in town cemeteries, were not allowed to become citizens, not allowed judicial rights, but had a distinction of being the only Asian nationality to be named with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1848.”

Lore told the board members on Thursday she wanted the name change to be a way to recognize Chinese immigrants for their contributions to Colorado, rather than using a term that’s not acceptable to Asian Americans.

Board member William Wei, a history professor at the University of Colorado and representative of History Colorado, said this proposal for a name change was probably the easiest one the subcommittee he was on had considered and it readily accepted Lore’s suggestion.

The advisory board also approved a recommendation to change the name of Benchmark Lake Reservoir in the town of Avon to Nottingham Lake to be consistent with local use.

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