Mountain may be renamed for Reagan
By Emily Anthes, Globe Correspondent *|* June 7, 2004
In five years, one of the mountains in New Hampshire's 12-mile long Presidential range may be renamed in honor of President Reagan, who died at his Los Angeles home Saturday.
Reagan would join presidents Washington, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Pierce, and Eisenhower. He and Eisenhower would be the only two 20th-century presidents to have a peak named after them.
After sailing through New Hampshire's Republican-dominated Legislature, the renaming of Mount Clay in northern New Hampshire was signed into law last year by Governor Craig Benson. Benson called the change ''a fitting tribute to the man who won the Cold War and almost single-handedly caused the dramatic decline of Communism."
But federal approval for the name change wouldn't occur for at least five years, according to the regulations of the US Board on Geographic Names, which controls the naming of natural features. The board, which works with the federal secretary of the Interior Department to establish official names, will not consider proposals for commemorative names until the individual has been dead for at least five years. State and local feedback on the proposed name is solicited before the board makes a final decision.
If Reagan gets his peak, it would mean Henry Clay -- the senator and secretary of state of Kentucky who became known as the ''great compromiser" when he negotiated tenuous agreements between the North and South before the Civil War -- would lose his spot on the range. Clay is not the only nonpresidential statesman to have a peak among presidents; others include Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock.*
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