Conservative activist thwarted after trying to name Nevada peak after Reagan

March 30, 1981 file photo of President Ronald Reagan speaking to the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO at a Washington hotel. ((AP))

In the end, naming a Nevada peak after former President Ronald Reagan turned out to be too steep a climb.

A conservative activist who had been petitioning the state to name the peak of Frenchman Mountain after the late president reportedly has been thwarted -- at least for now -- after a Democratic congresswoman quietly filed a bill to name it instead after Nevada's first female lieutenant governor.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., filed the bill to name the peak after Maude Frazier, a fellow Democrat who also helped create the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

In doing so, Titus sidelined the efforts of conservative activist Chuck Muth, who in September thought he was making progress on "Mount Reagan" after the state's Board on Geographic Names signed off on it.

But now the national board is in a holding pattern as long as Titus' bill is on the table.

Muth told the Review-Journal he's concerned the move could sideline "Mount Reagan" indefinitely, even if the bill doesn't pass.

The next time, he told the newspaper, "Harry (Reid) can put a bill in to name it Snoopy Peak."

He called it a "cheap, petty, partisan political stunt."

But a Titus spokeswoman said the bill was simply an effort to "name a Nevada landmark after a notable Nevadan."

Muth plans to take up the issue with well-known conservative activist Grover Norquist, who for years has tried to affix Reagan's name to landmarks, to figure out the next step.