A look out the window
Heritage branding and administrative designations (late name layers)
In the late 20th and 21st centuries, “historic” names often return as interpretive overlays: scenic byways, trail designations, monuments, and NRHP listings. These don’t always match the exact historic alignment, but they do become the public-facing name people repeat. (That’s not “wrong,” it’s just a different layer—commemoration rather than navigation.)
If you want a practical system for understanding Mojave pages, the old-fashioned way works best: treat names like strata. For any road/trail/place page, keep a short “Naming” paragraph that explicitly separates
(1) earliest known/traditional name,
(2) Spanish/Mexican-era name if applicable,
(3) wagon-era name,
(4) auto-trail/highway-era name,
(5) modern heritage/administrative name.
Then, when a reader asks, “Which is correct?” :
“all of them—just not in the same decade, and not for the same user group.”
Look out the window: Mojave naming changes usually aren’t random—they’re the paper trail of who was moving (and why) at a given moment. When feet become wagons, wagons become cars, and cars become heritage tourism, the corridor stays put, but the name on the map keeps changing with the times.