History & Heritage · Place Names
How Zion's Landmarks Got Their Names
Read a Zion map and you're reading scripture, legend, and pioneer grit all at once - angels and thrones, a coyote god, a superintendent's stairway, and a canyon a farmer decided to call a sanctuary. Here's where the names came from.
How the canyon became "Zion"
Long before it had a name on any government map, this was Southern Paiute country. When the explorer John Wesley Powell surveyed the region in 1872, he recorded the canyon as Mukuntuweap - understood to mean roughly "straight canyon."
But another name was already taking hold. Isaac Behunin, a Mormon settler who farmed the canyon floor in the 1860s, is credited with calling the place Zion - a biblical word for a refuge or sanctuary, a fitting label for a green, sheltered valley walled off by towering cliffs. The name stuck with the settlers even as the government used Powell's.
The paperwork eventually caught up to the people. In 1909, President William Howard Taft set the canyon aside as Mukuntuweap National Monument. In 1918 it was renamed Zion National Monument, and in 1919 Congress established Zion National Park - making Behunin's quiet, sanctuary-minded name official for good.
The Minister Who Named It in a Day
A remarkable share of Zion's most famous names came from one person on one visit. In 1916, Methodist minister Frederick Vining Fisher toured the canyon and, in essentially a single day, christened landmark after landmark - names so evocative they stuck for good.
Angels Landing
Gazing up at the sheer, isolated summit, Fisher is said to have remarked that only an angel could land there. The name stuck to what's now Zion's most famous - and most heart-pounding - hike.
Angels Landing hike →The Great White Throne
The gleaming, pale monolith rising some 2,400 feet from the canyon floor struck Fisher as a throne - a name that captured both its scale and its almost sacred presence.
The Three Patriarchs
The trio of sandstone peaks in the Court of the Patriarchs took the names of the biblical patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - left to right.
The Organ & The Pulpit
Fisher wasn't done. On the same tour he named smaller formations too, including The Organ - the fin of rock that juts out below Angels Landing near the river's Big Bend.
Mount Moroni
The smaller sandstone horn standing in front of Jacob was later named Moroni, for the angel of Latter-day Saint scripture - one more layer of religious naming on the canyon's walls.
Older Names, Deeper Roots
Not every name came from a minister. Some reach back into Paiute tradition; others honor the people who built the trails, hid in the backcountry, or borrowed a word from their faith.
Temple of Sinawava
The great natural amphitheater at the end of the Scenic Drive is named for Sinawava, the coyote god of the Southern Paiute - a reminder that this canyon held meaning long before it held a name in English.
Mount Kinesava
Rising over the park's southwest edge, Mount Kinesava carries the name of Kinesava, a Paiute deity tied to the canyon in local legend.
Walter's Wiggles
The 21 tight switchbacks near the top of the Angels Landing trail are named for Walter Ruesch, Zion's first superintendent, who engineered the improbable stone stairway; the route to Scout Lookout was dedicated in 1926.
On the Angels Landing trail →Kolob Canyons
The park's quiet northwest corner borrows "Kolob" from Latter-day Saint scripture - a name for the star said to be nearest the throne of God. A lofty title for some of the reddest, least-crowded cliffs in the region.
Lee Pass
The gateway to the Kolob backcountry is named for John D. Lee, the frontiersman later executed for his role in the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre, who is said to have taken refuge in this remote country.
Red Arch Mountain
As local history tells it, this peak was named after an arch on its face collapsed in the 1880s, sending debris down onto a pioneer family's farm below - a vivid reminder that in Zion, the rock is always moving.
The Watchman
The peak that towers over the south entrance and the town of Springdale earned its name honestly: it stands like a sentinel, keeping watch over the mouth of the canyon.
A note on sources: these origins draw on Southern Paiute tradition, early pioneer and Latter-day Saint records, and National Park Service history. Where a story is more legend than record, we've said so - the canyon has always inspired a good tale.
Keep Exploring Zion
Hike Angels Landing
The trail, the permit lottery, Walter's Wiggles, and the chains.
Angels Landing →Zion History & Heritage
Petroglyphs, ancestral peoples, Paiute tradition, and pioneer days.
Explore the history →Zion Photography
Original photos of the Throne, the Patriarchs, and the canyon walls.
Photo gallery →