What’s in a geographic name?

A standing-room-only audience of about 60 people was informed and entertained with the wit and wisdom of Oregon author and place names historian Lewis L. McArthur at Paulina Springs Books in Sisters Friday evening.

McArthur is the author of “Oregon Geographic Names,” the recognized authority on place names in the state.

The author began his hour-long comments with a brief, but detailed history of names along the Oregon coast and in the Willamette Valley.

However, the audience had the greatest interest when he discussed central Oregon and brought up the proposed renaming of Squaw Creek.

“While the name ‘Squaw’ was first used to mean women, there is no question that today, the name has become offensive to some people,” he explained.

“Some features using that name have been renamed, but Squaw Creek in the Sisters area probably is the best known.”

A new name for the creek should be pronounceable, capable of being spelled without special accent marks and have the support of the local residents, he explained. Both the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and county commissioners in Deschutes and Jefferson counties will be asked for comments on a new name, but none of them have a veto power over a final choice.

The author spoke of John Fremont’s trip through the Sisters area in 1843. Fremont traveled by Squaw Creek, but didn’t name it.

“Ten years later, Abbott and Williamson came through here on the railroad survey and named the creek Wychus River,” he said. “They also named Black Butte as Pivot Mountain, but later called it Black Butte in their report. Too bad that Pivot Mountain didn’t prevail.

“We have a number of Black Buttes in Oregon, but we don’t have any Pivot Mountains.”

McArthur traced several theories on the naming of Oregon. These included misspellings of a river name on an early map seen by Major Robert Rogers in 1765 and a name similar to Oregon used for smelt grease in British Columbia.

He then added a new theory that researchers have proposed since his book’s publication, the use of an Algonquin Indian name for a river in Ohio, meaning “beautiful river.”

“It’s hard to pin down some things. You know there’s lots of history and some if it gets changed over time,” he said.

McArthur opened his remarks by tracing exploration along the Oregon coast before moving inland and into central and eastern Oregon. Seldom referring to his notes, he spoke on the role of early ocean and overland explorers from 1603 into the 19th century, explaining who named what geographic features and why some names prevailed and others did not.

“George Vancouver, the famous British surveyor, arrived at the Columbia River in 1792. His large ship could not enter the river, so he sent in Robert Broughton,” McArthur said. “They said he rowed up the Columbia River, but that is a bunch of baloney. The boat had masts and they most certainly used a sail.”

Broughton named 16 features including Mt. Hood, of which nine have prevailed.

By contrast, Lewis and Clark named 29 features, but only six have prevailed because little was written about their trip at the time.

“These funny things with names happen sometimes,” McArthur said. “Like they used to say in the army, ‘somebody has everything all arranged for, but nothing attended to.”