Nevadans discuss Mark Twain name bid

RENO, Nev. - Nevada officials have launched a new bid to give Mark Twain recognition in the state where he assumed his pen name 150 years ago, but it doesn’t come without opposition.

The Nevada State Board on Geographic Names is again pushing a proposal to name a scenic Lake Tahoe cove for Samuel Clemens, Twain’s real name.

But it no longer maintains that the inlet should be named for Twain based on claims he actually camped there in 1861.

The board’s national counterpart rejected the request two years ago in a 5-4 vote, citing as a factor doubt about whether Twain camped at the spot.

Nevada board members now say they want to name the cove for Twain merely because of his association with Tahoe and the lack of a geographic feature in the state named for him. His book Roughing It put Nevada on the map and included an oft-quoted poetic phrase about the Sierra Nevada lake that straddles the California-Nevada border.

“Whether or not the cove was Mark Twain’s campsite does not matter in the national scheme to put a name to that cove,” said Bob Stewart, a member of the state board. “The very fact that he was associated with the Nevada shore of Lake Tahoe makes an unnamed point on Tahoe eligible for naming for him.”

But Stewart, a historical researcher and former U.S. Bureau of Land Management employee, said he still believes Twain camped at the cove on Lake Tahoe’s northeast shore near Incline Village.

“Personally, I’m totally comfortable that this is the campsite, but this is not the point of this nomination,” he said.

David Antonucci, of Homewood, Calif., a civil engineer and history writer who maintains Twain camped on the California side of the lake, pledged to fight the new bid. His opposition was cited as a factor in the earlier decision by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.

“It’s just a backdoor attempt to accomplish what was earlier rejected by the national board,” he said. “I don’t think they’re fooling anyone. You’d have to be naive to think if it was named Samuel Clemens Cove that the proponents would not promote that as the site where he camped.”