To understand how the mountain we know as Pikes Peak gained its name, we must step back from its namesake. US Army officer Captain Zebulon Pike, the explorer for whom the summit is named, did not discover it, christen it, or even climb it (though he tried).
Spanish explorers were the first Europeans to map the lands that would later become the US state of Colorado. Before then, the Ute, Comanche, and Apache had lived in the region for centuries. Pike arrived in 1806 during an expedition launched just before the conclusion of the Lewis and Clark Expedition crossed the continental divide on their way back east with the Corps of Discovery.
Since Pike failed in his attempt to scale the mountain’s summit, he didn't claim the right to name it, leaving that distinction for a later explorer. He labeled it "Highest Peak" on his 1810 map because it was the highest elevation in the region. This humble designation was immensely valuable to later explorers, who only had to look for the highest peak to orient themselves.
It did not take long for someone to succeed where Pike had failed. In 1820, the Long Expedition explored the region, and one of its members, Captain Edwin James, did scale the peak. Major Stephen H. Long of the US Army Corp of Topographical Engineers chose to name it "James Peak" in his honor, and in 1823 designated it as such on his map, "Country Drained by the Mississippi Western Section."
Long had another reason for renaming the summit. Realizing that taller mountains than Pike's "Highest Peak" existed in the region, he feared that this looming misnomer would mislead later explorers.
Throughout the 1820s and 1830s, US cartographers agreed on “James’ Peak” as the mountain’s name.
When Bent's Old Fort opened as a trading post in 1833, the mountain route of the old Santa Fe Trail began seeing regular traffic through present-day Eastern Colorado. Most traders in that area, typically Americans and Mexicans, were not privy to Long's map. Even if they had been, it might have been of limited use since many were illiterate. Instead, these unlettered traders used topographical features to find their way.
By that time, the story of Pike’s adventures after failing to climb Highest Peak was part of Santa Fe Trail lore. The same blizzard that prevented Pike from reaching the summit caused him to lose his bearings, and he “accidentally” led his party into Spanish territory. They were taken to Mexico and held for four months until being escorted back to the border.
Undramatic though it may be, the story was remembered by trappers and others in the region and passed down to trail riders. As they rumbled down to Santa Fe, traders used the mountain to benchmark their trip by noting, "and that's where they arrested Captain Pike." This frequent reference to Pike caused the name “Pike’s Peak” to take hold.
In the early 1840s, the mountain’s two names were interchangeable. Josiah Gregg’s 1844 map, "Indian Territory, Northern Texas and New Mexico,” lists both. Possibly because Gregg was both a cartographer and a trader, he used both names for the landmark.
The struggle between the two monikers would end at the start of the US-Mexico War in 1846 when General Stephen W. Kearney's Army of the West marched to Santa Fe. “Pikes Peak” had won out, and James’ Peak's 23-year reign as the region’s most recognizable summit had ended.
Traders on the Santa Fe Trail then named the mountain for Zebulon Pike. Good tobacco, strong coffee, and entertaining stories were hot commodities over the campfire, and it may be that the story of Pike’s arrest was more fun to tell than that of James’ ascent. Cartographers gradually followed suit and began designating it as such on their maps.
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