"... The weather was serene and pleasant, and the country continued to exhibit, between us and the eastern snowy range, the same luxuriant appearance. At its northern extremity, Mount Baker bore by compass N. 22 E.; the round snowy mountain, now forming its southern extremity, and which, after my friend Rear Admiral Rainier, I distinguished by the name of MOUNT RAINIER, bore N. [S.] 42 E. ... "
- Captain George Vancouver, May 8, 1792 - surveying the Pacific coast of North America in consequence of the Nootka Crisis.
A spectacular 14,000-foot active volcano, the 21st most prominent mountain in the world... not a bad monument.
http://www.picomazing.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Mount-rainier-1.jpgThere's been pressure now and then to officially restore the mountain's aboriginal name, Tacoma or Tahoma. So far Rainier has stuck. (Some suggest "Mount Rainy" for the local climate...)
From where I sit, Rainier is below the horizon, but if I walked down the block I could easily see its volcanic little brother Mount Baker (a mere 10,000 feet) looming 60 miles away.
And for whom did Vancouver name Mount Baker? First Lt. Joseph Baker, who spotted it!
More details of the British naming(s), with an engraving of Mount Rainier " from a sketch taken on the spot by J. Sykes, 1792":
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/LivingWith/Historical/volcanoes_george_vancouver.htmlOf course the Spanish were hard at work mapping the same coast at the same time, led by Dionisio Alcala Galiano, who was to die at Trafalgar in command of the Bahama... but I am getting far afield from Peter Rainier and his bequest to the nation.