From Charlottesville to Yosemite

The Ahwahnee Hotel in 1980 (George Rose)
Daniel Duane has an interesting piece in yesterday's New York Times on genocide of the Yosemite Valley's natives and the replacement of their names with Anglo ones, and it all starts from a trademark dispute. After detailing the killing and renaming of places in Yosemite carried out by California militia, Duane explains both the legal dispute and the complexity of the name issue:
The recent furor over the name of the Ahwahnee began in 2015, when a subsidiary of the Delaware North Corporation, which operated the park’s hotels, restaurants and shops for more than two decades under a government concession contract, lost its contract to Aramark (no tragedy there — the burgers were criminal). The government says Delaware North quietly registered the trademarks for the names on the hotel and the other places and is now demanding payment for their use. The National Park Service came up with new names and told Delaware North to get lost. Now there’s a federal lawsuit.
I dearly hope Delaware North loses, but I also hope that the National Park Service sticks with the new names, however ridiculous — and, while they’re at it, changes dozens of others. My vote would be to change Tenaya Lake to Pywiack Lake, relabel Yosemite Valley itself Ahwahnee and sprinkle the park with new historical plaques saying things like “On this spot, in 1851, American militiamen shot Tenaya’s son in the back, let him bleed out in the grass, then dragged Tenaya up to have a look and enjoyed watching him weep.” 
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