Origins of Place Names in Oregon

[Jeffrey Kopp]

On Tue, 16 Mar 1999 11:51:31 -0800, you wrote:

>Helix.

No fair!  Having recently learned that you're an "east of the
mountains" girl, I should have disqualified you.  ;)

I ran across these for a JavaScript class exercise.  I went to the
Blue Book to pick out the most incongruous Oregon place-names for the
Zip-code lookup program we were assigned to write.  

cityName[1] = "Boring" ; zipCode[1] = 97009
cityName[2] = "Drain" ; zipCode[2] = 97435
cityName[3] = "Dillard" ; zipCode[3] = 97432
cityName[4] = "Bonanza" ; zipCode[4] = 97623
cityName[5] = "Dufur" ; zipCode[5] = 97021
cityName[6] = "Echo" ; zipCode[6] = 97826
cityName[7] = "Fossil" ; zipCode[7] = 97830
cityName[8] = "Greenhorn" ; zipCode[8] = 97045
cityName[9] = "Halfway" ; zipCode[9] = 97834
cityName[10] = "Riddle" ; zipCode[10] = 97469
cityName[11] = "Sandy" ; zipCode[11] = 97055
cityName[12] = "Scappoose" ; zipCode[12] = 97056
cityName[13] = "Sisters" ; zipCode[13] = 97759
cityName[14] = "Sodaville" ; zipCode[14] = 97355
cityName[15] = "Spray" ; zipCode[15] = 97874
cityName[16] = "Sublimity" ; zipCode[16] = 97385
cityName[17] = "Tangent" ; zipCode[17] = 97389
cityName[18] = "Waterloo" ; zipCode[18] = 97355

(Unfortunately, Jump Off Joe Creek and Wanker's Corners don't have
Zip codes.)

As a child I was impressed by the optimism and idealism of the
Willamette Valley pioneers, who sometimes chose names like Progress,
Amity, and Sublimity--a nice change from the common practice of
naming a new town after their old home "back east."

Just as any word processor should be able to spell Weyerhaueser and
Sedro Woolley correctly to get a job in Seattle, hereabouts one must
be able to spell Molalla and Estacada.  My mom once got a job with a
lumber company after being asked if she could spell "Hoquiam."

(P.S. Where the heck is Greenhorn?  In the Blue Book, it shows as
being somewhere "over there," but has an Oregon City mailing
address.)

Jeff