Content area
Full Text
On warm summer afternoons as teenagers, Richard Toyon and his friends would climb the mountains above Glendale to a peak dotted with radio antennas and listen to rock 'n' roll played through speakers at the base of the towers.
Over the years, Toyon became bothered that the peak did not have an official name. So last year, the 43-year-old film production designer embarked on a crusade to name the 2,600-foot mountaintop, which he can see from his bedroom window in La Crescenta.
The U.S. Board of Geographic Names will consider his application next month to name the site Tongva Peak in recognition of an indigenous tribe, also known as the Gabrielinos, that helped build the San Fernando, San Gabriel and Los Angeles missions.
His bid is supported by the Gabrielino/Tongva Tribal Council, the city of Glendale and the county of Los Angeles.
"I wanted to see the peak named after the people who have been here for 10,000 years," said Toyon, a local history buff.
The Tongva lived in villages on vast tribal lands that stretched from Orange County to...