GILLETTE - U.S. Rep. Barbara Cubin believes the name of the nation's first national monument is under attack, so she introduced legislation on Tuesday to preserve the name "Devils Tower."

Cubin spokesman Joe Milczewski said the action is meant as a warning to Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton not to meddle with the Devils Tower moniker. He said Cubin wanted to be in front of a pending proposal by the National Park Service to give the monolith the designation of "Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark."

"This is not a proposal for a name change for the park, a locally controversial subject," the National Park Service stated in an internal brief in January. "The Secretarially-designated Bear Lodge National Historic Landmark will ensure that the Native American name and sacred site values are formally recognized and convey a stronger sense of the cultural significance of the site to all people."

Milczewski noted that the secretary of Interior doesn't need congressional approval to make such a designation. He said Cubin recently heard from many residents in the area who believe the landmark designation is really an attempt to change the Devils Tower name.

Frank Sanders is among them.

"I see no need to change the name. It was not misnamed to start with," said Sanders, owner of Devils Tower Lodge Bed & Breakfast Wilderness & Climbing Retreat.

Sanders said he has climbed the tower 32 times already this year. He said Devils Tower holds significant meaning for many American Indian people, just as it holds significant meaning for local residents today and for climbers and tourists from all over the world.

But many Indians don't see it that way. Janice Ashley, a Lakota from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, said she doesn't like the name "Devil." To her, it counters the spirituality of the place.

"The creator made it, so why would you want to call it something like that?" Ashley said.

Ashley prefers Wakan Tower, meaning Sacred Tower. Other Lakota members call it Mato Tipila, or Bear Lodge. Still other Indians have suggested calling it Grey Horn Butte, named after the boy in the legendary tale of how a rock grew into the sky to protect the boy from a bear.

"It is my belief and the belief of scores of people from around the Devils Tower region that a name change will harm the tourist trade and bring economic hardship to area communities," Cubin said in a prepared statement Tuesday. "I will not stand by and allow that to happen."

Reporter Dustin Bleizeffer can be reached at (307) 682-3388 or dzeffer@trib.com.