Mount Doane


Mount Doane el. is a mountain peak in the Absaroka Range in Yellowstone National Park. The peak is named for Lieutenant Gustavus Cheyney Doane, a U.S. Army cavalry officer who escorted the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition into Yellowstone in 1870. During that expedition, Doane and Nathaniel P. Langford ascended several peaks east of Yellowstone Lake.

Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition

, the leader of the expedition named a peak for Doane, but that peak's name was later changed to Mount Schurz. Mount Doane was officially named by the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 to honor the first truly official report of an exploration of the Yellowstone region that Doane wrote after the Washburn expedition. Doane also participated in the 1st Hayden expedition in 1871.
Doane's account of his and Langford's ascent into the Absaroka Range :

Renaming proposal

Various groups of Native Americans have proposed renaming the mountain in 2017 and 2018, to First Peoples Mountain. The Great Plains Tribal Chairman's Association stated that Gustavius Doane should not be honored because of his role in leading the military to murder hundreds of Native American people, predominantly women and children who were recovering from smallpox, in the Marias Massacre. Hayden stated that he was proud of the Marias Massacre.