Lewis Ankeny McArthur

“ But old timers have long resented a community name which honors a newcomer, a member of the homesteading fraternity whom elderly stockmen referred to as 'scissorbills.' To Dan Crowley, one of the few old time survivors of the olden days, Kilts is still Donnybrook. And if you stop in Ashwood on your way east to the Horse Heaven mines to ask about the country beyond Ash butte and the Red Jacket mine, folks of the Trout Creek village will tell you that the community up on the highlands is known as Donnybrook. ”

“ About the time the news arrived in southern Oregon, men were engaged in improving the road over the low hills north of the point where the city is now situated, and they celebrated General Grant's victory by naming the summit Grants Pass. This name was later applied to a nearby stage station and then to a post office, and on completion of the railroad the post office was moved from the stage station near the geographic feature called Grants Pass to a point near the railroad station and the present community took its name from the post office. ”

“ The latter need has been met by the publication of Crater Lake, the Story of its origin, by Howel Williams of the University of California, Berkeley, 1941. This volume, full of interest and well illustrated, has been followed by Geology of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon, also by Williams, published by the Carnegie Institution at Washington, 1942. This is a more formal publication of great scientific importance. Crater Lake is one of nature's marvels. It is more in the nature of a scenic wonder than any. ”

“ The compiler does not know the exact origin of the name of Fir post office. It may have been named for the trees which grow so vigorously in the locality, or it may have been suggested by the name of Fir Creek, a small stream flowing east from the Coast Range to join Gales Creek just southeast of the Bateman store. Fir Creek School is situated on the creek at the toe of the foothills on a side road about two miles northwest of the town of Gales Creek. For information about the varieties of firs growing in Oregon, see under Firwood. ”

“ Cape Blanco was the first geographical feature of the state to be named by a white man, although it is not at all certain what feature was originally so identified. For a period of nearly 200 years explorers carried on the work of naming the headlands of Oregon before the interior was touched upon. The history of the naming of the Oregon capes is therefore worthy of study, particularly in view of the fact that much uncertainty exists as to what some of the early navigators saw and named on their charts. ”

“ BEAVER, Tillamook County. It is not surprising that the name of the animal that exercised such influence in the history of the West should be attached to so many geographic features. There are three post offices in Oregon with Beaver as the dominant part of the name, and a score of creeks, mountains and buttes. The American beaver (Castor canadensis and its sub-species) occupied a wide field on this continent and existed in great numbers. Beavers are heavily built, and are covered with long, coarse hairs overlying the short, dense and silky underfur to which beaver skins owe their value. ”

“ Hillsdale is a community just southwest of Portland, served by Hillsdale post office, a rural station of the Portland office. When the Southern Pacific Company West Side branch railroad was operated through Hillsdale, the company found it inadvisable to use the name Hillsdale for the station because of possible confusion with Hillsboro on the same line. The station was named Bertha for Mrs. Richard Koehler, wife of the railroad manager. The track has been torn up and Bertha station is no more. The name Hillsdale has been in use since pioneer days, and is quite suitable for the place. ”

“ Postal records show that the name of the post office Ott was changed to Myrtle Point in December, 1876. The name was due to the geographical location and also to the fact that the community was started where there was an abundance of myrtle. This Oregon or Coos Bay myrtle is the same as California laurel, Umbelluria californica. It is an evergreen tree, distinguished by a strong camphor odor. In favorable conditions it grows 80 feet high and four feet in diameter. In the dense forest it grows with a clean straight trunk, but elsewhere and more commonly it has a thick trunk and large low limbs. ”

“ From Bering Sea to Cape Horn ranges of varying heights are constantly visible from the ocean, and Oregon is no exception to the rule. The entry made by Meriwether Lewis in his diary for April 1, 1806, shows that he perceived quite clearly that the mountains along the coast were separated from the Cascade Range by a valley drained by a large river. However, the term Coast Range does not seem to have been used by early explorers in the Oregon country, and the name was doubtless developed by the pioneer settlers. ”

“ Many old mining camps have this name applied to one or more geographic features, and it does not mean that a steamboat has ever been in the neighborhood. When mines have been worked out, or where prospects do not come up to expectations, either naturally or through fraud, they are said by miners to have been "steamboated." In addition to a place and a mountain in the southwest part of Jackson County bearing this name, there is also a creek named Steamboat which rises in the Calapoova Mountains in Lane County and flows through Douglas County into North Umpqua River. ”

“ In the '90s the Post Office Department had an attack of efficiency, and consolidated the names of a great number of ofhces made up of two words, though for some reason names like New York, San Francisco and Niagara Falls were overlooked. In
any event, the name of the office in Jackson County was changed to Lakecreek on April 24, 1894, and that has been the official style for over half a century, though the USGS map of the Medford quadrangle gives the form Lake Creek. If there be an inconsistency here, Oregonians will just have to worry along. ”

“ There are men whose susceptibility to literary excellence, whose skill and power in producing literary effects, give us results of this kind. "The textbooks in the hands of our children in the public schools continue to furnish them with erroneous information that the name of the state of Oregon was derived from the word oregano, the Spanish name for the plant we call 'marjoram.' This is a mere conjecture, absolutely without support. ”

“ Upward of twenty-five places in the United States have been named with the word made famous by Oliver Goldsmith in the first line of his Deserted Village, a name that turned out to be truly prophetic as far as the Oregon camp was concerned. According to Irving L. Rand of Portland there were no buildings left in Auburn, Oregon, in 1945. Many miners came to eastern Oregon from the Sierra Nevada region of California and the compiler is of the opinion that Auburn, Oregon, was named for the well-known California mining town, which was in turn named by miners who came from Auburn, New York. ”

“ When the railroad was built through in the '70s a station was established more than half a mile north and east of the post office. This was the start of a bitter neighborhood controversy that ran on for nearly two decades. The people living near the post office would not allow it to be moved to Cottage Grove railroad station, so a new post office was established at that point and named Lemati. Lemati is a Chinook jargon word meaning mountain, but why it was selected as a name for the new post office is not apparent. ”

“ Cape Falcon is the next cape south of Arch Cape, and has been known in the past as False Tillamook Head, which lies further north. On August 18, 1775, Captain Bruno Heceta, while cruising along the north Pacific Coast discovered a cape in latitude 45° 43' north and named it Cape Falcon. While this is not far from the correct latitude of what we now know as Cape Falcon, 45° 46', the records of Heceta are so meager as to make it impossible exactly to identify his discovery. Cape Falcon as we now know it derived its name from Heceta, irrespective of what point he originally discovered. ”

“ Most drivers sat on a high seat and deftly manipulated a line for each horse. Many rode the left wheel horse and drove the leaders. At least one team in each outfit had warning bells on an arch fastened to the hames. Some horses were sleek and strong, well harnessed, others were pitiable creatures, victims of cruelty and ignorance. ”

“ BEAVER Hill, Coos County. For well over half a century Beaver Hill has been a well-known name in western Oregon because of its application to the Beaver Hill coal mine about 12 miles airline south of the city of Coos Bay. The mining community Beaver Hill had a railroad, but never had a post office with its own name. The place is shown with fidelity on the Geological Survey atlas sheet of the Coos Bay area mapped in 1895-96, but there is nothing on the map to indicate that the name was used for a hill or other topographic feature. ”

“ The mountains appear as the Three Sisters on Preston's Map of Oregon, 1856. There is a story to the effect that at one time the three mountains were known as Mount Faith, Mount Hope and Mount Charity, beginning at the north. In 1927 William P. Vandevert of Bend, a native son of Oregon, confirmed this, and informed the compiler that when a youth, he was often told that the name Three Sisters was originally applied by members of the Methodist mission at Salem in the early '40s, and that the individual peaks were given the names mentioned above. ”

“ In the Blue Mountains the name tamarack is generally given to the western larch, Larix occidentalis, which is not a true tamarack at all. There are many of these western larch trees near the locality of the Tamarack post office and that is how it got its name.
TAMARACK CREEK, Wallowa County. This creek is in township 5 north, range 45 east. Other geographic features in Oregon are also named for the tamarack, which is correctly, the western larch, Larix occidentalis. This tree has a variety of common names. It grows in many places in Oregon, particularly in the Blue and Wallowa mountains. ”

“ Captain Ainsworth was one of the most prominent of Oregon's pioneer citizens. He was born in Ohio on June 6, 1822, and came to Oregon in 1850. As a youth he became acquainted with steamboat activity on the Mississippi River. After reaching Oregon he became interested in transportation. He was the leading spirit in the founding of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company. He moved to Oakland, California, in 1880, and died near that city on December 30, 1893. His son, John C. Ainsworth, became a prominent Oregon business man and gave freely of his time to public affairs. ”

“ On September 10, 1946, Giles French wrote the compiler as follows: "Early was a post office on the north line of township two north just west of John Day River. At Early there was a flour mill where early-day farmers obtained their bread-stuff, and I am told the name was given the place because garden sass became edible early when grown there. The elevation is low and the sun shines brightly in the John Day Valley when it is cold and windy on the hills above. The Walls built a dam a short way above the mill and James Fox now grows alfalfa there. ”

“ There have been a number of cases in Oregon postal history where post offices have been established, only to have local sponsors lose interest in the prospects. The other Polk office was about three miles northeast of Dallas. The name Polk for this locality was in use in the '80s as a station on the Oregonian Railway narrow gage line, and confusion between the two places may have been the reason that Hill's post office did not actively furnish service. Polk railroad station northeast of Dallas did not get a post office until April 12, 1899, when Peter R. Graber was appointed postmaster. ”

“ CAPE LOOKOUT, Tillamook County. Cape Lookout is one of the most prominent on the Oregon coast. It projects into the ocean one and onehalf miles and has a narrow rocky promontory over 400 feet high on its seaward end. East of the cape the mountains rise to an elevation of over 2000 feet. Cape Lookout bears its present name in error which will doubtless never be corrected. The name was originally applied by John Meares to what is now known as Cape Meares, which he described fully and accurately, and his description was subsequently corroborated by Vancouver. ”

“ Canyonville was for many years known as North Canyonville, the post office having been established with that name July 6, 1852, with John T. Boyle, postmaster. There was a locality farther south known as South Canyonville, but this was not a post office. The post office name was changed to Canvonville June 1, 1892. Canyon Creek is erronously supposed by many to be Cow Creek. The Pacific Highway does not follow the canyon of Cow Creek although it does traverse that stream through a wide valley east of Glendale. The pass at the head of Canyon Creek is about 2020 feet in elevation. ”

“ CHEHALEM MOUNTAINS, Washington and Yamhill counties. These are the highest mountains in the Willamette Valley, and that section of the valley north of them is generally known as the Tualatin Valley, drained by Tualatin River. The Chehalem Mountains and some more or less independent spurs extend from the Willamette River east of Newberg northwest to the foothills of the Coast Range south of Forest Grove. The highest known point at the southern end is due north of Newberg, and has an elevation of 1447 feet. At a point on the northern end east of Wapato is a summit of 1633 feet, called Bald Peak. ”

“ PIONEER City, Lincoln County. The post office at Pioneer City, which was established July 2, 1868, with George Kellogg first postmaster, was one of the first in what is now Lincoln County. Newport office was established the same day, Newton was established July 12, 1868, and Little Elk, Toledo and Yaquina were established on July 14 of the same year. These six offices took care of the postal needs of that part of Oregon for several years. Pioneer City was appropriately named as far as Pioneer was concerned, though the place never became a city or even a small hamlet. ”