Mountains named after a hard-to-see tooth?
I love this article about viewing the Bear’s Tooth of the Beartooth Mountains from a spot near Reedpoint. But it brings up an issue that has confused me for a while with the sentence, “Supposedly the mountain range's name comes from the Crow Indian naming of the spire.” Why would the Crow tribe have named the entire mountain range after a spire that is so difficult to see?
In researching Images of America: Red Lodge, I found some indication that in the 1930s the Northern Pacific railroad portrayed a totally different feature as the Bear’s tooth: one lying south of Beartooth Butte. No way it’s visible from Reedpoint. And although it may be visible from flatlands somewhere in Wyoming, it poses the same difficulty regarding the origin of the range’s name.
Anyone who could enlighten me, I’d love to hear from you, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
In researching Images of America: Red Lodge, I found some indication that in the 1930s the Northern Pacific railroad portrayed a totally different feature as the Bear’s tooth: one lying south of Beartooth Butte. No way it’s visible from Reedpoint. And although it may be visible from flatlands somewhere in Wyoming, it poses the same difficulty regarding the origin of the range’s name.
Anyone who could enlighten me, I’d love to hear from you, via info at johnclaytonbooks dot com
