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Oregon Geographic Names

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Subject
  
Oregon place names

Dewey Decimal
  
979.5/003

Originally published
  
1928

ISBN
  
9780875952789

OCLC
  
636774573

4.4/5
Goodreads

Pages
  
1073 p. (7th edition)

LC Class
  
F874.M16 2003

Author
  
Lewis A. McArthur

Publisher
  
Oregon Historical Society

Oregon Geographic Names t2gstaticcomimagesqtbnANd9GcQ53WjDzbdHGY24Rz

Publication date
  
1928 (1st edition); 2003 (7th edition)

Similar
  
Oregon books, Other books

Oregon Geographic Names is a compilation of the origin and meaning of place names in the U.S. state of Oregon, published by the Oregon Historical Society. The book was originally published in 1928. It was compiled and edited by Lewis A. McArthur. As of 2011, the book is in its seventh edition and is compiled and edited by Lewis L. McArthur.

Contents

Content

In its introduction, it identifies six periods in the history of the state which have contributed to the establishment of local names:

  • The thousands of years of Native American life;
  • The period of Spanish, British, French and early American exploration, with arrivals by sea and overland, exemplified by the activities of the Hudson's Bay Company and the Lewis and Clark Expedition;
  • The pioneer period, up to and particularly including the days of the Oregon Trail;
  • The period of Indian Wars and mining claims inspired by the California Gold Rush and later facilitated by the Mining Act of 1872;
  • The period of homesteading between 1875 and 1925, which affected nine million acres (36,000 km²); and
  • The modern period of neologisms

    • The seventh edition contains 6,252 entries, with references to another 2,679 names scattered throughout the text. Entries are listed in alphabetical order beginning with A B Crossing, a railroad station in Coos County. The last entry is Zwagg Island, an island near Brookings, Oregon.

    Edition history

    The first three editions were edited by Lewis A. McArthur and published by Binford & Mort; Lewis L. McArthur took over from his father as of the fourth (1974) edition, which was the first to be published by the Oregon Historical Society Press.

    The seventh edition also includes a CD-ROM with a complete biographic and geographic index as well as various maps of Oregon locations.

    The current author's daughter, Mary McArthur, reportedly took over editorship for the book's upcoming 8th edition.

    References

    Oregon Geographic Names Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA