FARMINGTON – Some Navajo Nation officials are seeking to ask New Mexico to rename a U.S. highway after one of the longest-serving Native American lawmakers in U.S. history.
The Farmington Daily Times reports a Navajo legislative committee is requesting New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham name U.S. Highway 491 in honor of the late state Sen. John Pinto.
Pinto, who died in May at age 94, had long sought to turn the deadly U.S. 666 into a four-lane highway and to change its name to U.S. 491.
U.S. Highway 491 stretches around 194 miles from Gallup, New Mexico, through Colorado to Monticello, Utah.
Pinto was a World War II Navajo code talker and served more than four decades in the New Mexico Legislature.
