Ballard Mountain, fomerly Negrohead Mountain
Southern California’s Negrohead Mountain has been renamed to honor an African-American pioneer who once owned property there.
John Ballard, a former slave-turned-blacksmith, bought land on the 2,031-foot mountain in 1880.
Located in Southern California’s Santa Monica mountain range, the peak was officially named Niggerhead Mountain until the 1960′s, when it was changed to Negrohead Mountain. It will now be known as Ballard Mountain.
John Ballard
About 90 people including some two dozen Ballard descendants attended the renaming ceremony Saturday at the site where Ballard owned a 320-acre homestead near what is now the community of Seminole Hot Springs.
“I don’t know what it means to Los Angeles as a whole, but it means a lot to me,” Ballard’s 85-year-old great-grandson Reggie Ballard, a retired LA Fire Department captain, told the Los Angeles Times.
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"Kaffer Kop" (Negro Head) in Afrikaaans still sounds a heck of a lot better :-))
That was mighty white of them!