Tolo, Oregon: named for Yolo, California

[David Robertson]

Hi,

Some of you will remember my interest in the word "tolo" from Jargon, which 
made its way into the English of western Washington as the name of a Sadie 
Hawkins dance.

In the course of my research on that, I found one factoid that I couldn't 
cram into my tolo paper, so here it is for your amusement.

The town of Tolo, in southwest Oregon, apparently doesn't (intentionally) 
have a Chinook Jargon name.  The original settler there had named it for 
his beloved Yolo, California.  However, government authorities persistently 
misread the name as Tolo, which stuck.

What hasn't been established, but seems likely, is that somebody who knew 
Jargon might have assumed the intention was to name the town "success" in 
that language.  That would have been a typical pioneer-era idea.  

Cheers,

--Dave R

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