Wilderness area in Olympic National Park to be named for Dan Evans

The wilderness area inside the Olympic National Park would be named for Dan Evans, a former Washington governor and U.S. senator, under a bill that passed the House of Representatives Wednesday.

The House sent to President Barack Obama a proposal unanimously approved by the Senate earlier this year to rename some 877,000 acres of wilderness in the park for Evans. Currently it’s just called “the Olympic Wilderness.”

The state’s only three-term governor, Evans was in the Senate in 1984 and co-sponsored the law that protects more than 1.5 million acres in Olympic, North Cascades and Rainier national parks by designating them as wilderness. Members of the state’s congressional delegation, who unanimously supported the proposal, called it a fitting tribute to an outdoorsman who spent years protecting the state’s parks and forests.