The Palliser Expedition was travelling up the Bow Valley in 1858 when Eugene Bourgeau, the expedition's botanist, first saw the magnificent mountain which dominates the panorama from Dead Mans Flat. It must have been just as much of a surprise to him as it can be to those who now travel up the Bow Valley by car on the Trans-Canada Highway. Clouds were swirling around the summit and so he named it Wind Mountain. He ascended some nearby slopes and to his delight was able to collect about fifty varieties of alpine plants. Unlike some others of the era, when Bourgeau got a chance to name a peak he preferred to choose a name based on something natural rather than use the name of a famous person who more often than not would never even see the peak.

But some seventy years later a decision was made that this was too spectacular a peak to have the simple name of "Wind." Sir James Lougheed had recently passed away and it had been decided that a mountain west of Calgary should be named in his honour. Lougheed had practiced law in the city in partnership with the future prime minister of Canada, R.B. Bennett. Sir James had been appointed to the senate and later became a privy councillor and cabinet minister in Robert Borden's government.

A mountain near Healy Creek in Banff National Park was chosen to carry the name of Sir James Lougheed. However the Lougheed Family did not approve of this particular peak and, perhaps assisted by R.B. Bennett, successfully exerted pressure in the right places to have the much more spectacular Wind Mountain renamed Mount Lougheed in 1928.

Sir James Lougheed's grandson Peter was Premier of Alberta in the 1970's and early 1980's and during his time in office succeeded, with other members of his family, in climbing the mountain with guides.