Renaming of Indian Garden to Havasupai Gardens
We are excited to announce that on Thursday, November 10, the United States Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) voted unanimously (19-0) in favor of the proposal to change the name of Indian Garden to Havasupai Gardens. This name change is now official and divisions throughout the park will work to update NPS publications, websites, and signage to reflect this change.
On October 4, 2021, park management submitted a formal name change request to the USBGN for consideration to the new name Havasupai Gardens. The Havasupai people have actively occupied this area since time immemorial before the land’s designation as a National Park and until the NPS forcibly removed them in 1926. The renaming from Indian Garden to Havasupai Gardens is out of respect for the undue hardship imposed by the Park Service on the Havasupai people.
Havasupai leader, Carletta Tilousi, said,
“Thank you to all the Tribes, GCNP staff, Arizona State Preservation office and others for working hard for many years to change the name to “Havasupai Gardens” from “Indian Gardens”. As a descendent of the Burro-Tilousi family, I am glad to see that we will always remember and honor the true history of my family’s forced relocation due to the development of the Grand Canyon National Park. For that reason, honoring our ancestors and remembering our history is also very important to the Havasupai people. I hope this historic action will help other Tribes take similar steps and reclaim lands back by changing place names for historic and cultural preservation purposes.”
From now on, please use the place name of Havasupai Gardens when talking to visitors, such as when talking to them about how to get to Plateau Point. This kind of exchange can be a good teaching moment about the long history of Havasupai people living in the canyon, the park’s action to remove them in 1926, and what the park is doing now as we work with the Tribe to interpret this special place honestly.
This news also reaches us during Native American Heritage month where we respect and value the collective knowledge and history of Indigenous people. We greatly appreciate and celebrate the cultures, contributions, and resilience of all Native people, and particularly those on whose ancestral homelands we live and work.
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