U. S. DEPOSITORY Reprint from : National Wildlife, Aug.-Sept. 1978 The Naming (and misnaming) of America U.S. Department of the Interior/Geological Survey The Naming (and misnaming) of America by Mark Wexler Jim Jam Ridge winds for ridge immediately took on a several hundred feet along personality for me merely because a spectacular section of the High it had a name. Sierra, near the heart of northern There is something about California's Mother Lode country. the human psyche that cannot According to local historians, its tolerate a place without a name. name dates back to a night in the It is almost as if a land feature does late 1800s when a drunk prospector not exist at all-at least not on a rolled into a campfire, exploding a handful of rifle shells in his pocket. The fatal incident left his two partners with a severe case of the "jim jams"-a common term in those days for the "shakes"-and that's how the name took hold. My only encounter with the ridge took place a few years ago under much less dramatic circumstances. A novice back­ packer at the time, I had just completed my first day of mountain trekking and was propped up against a boulder, trying to make some sense out of a topographic map of the area. I was baffled by the wavy brown lines and black dashes, and asked a companion to show me where we were. He quickly pointed to a curved line, marked by the words: "Jim Jam Ridge." It was an enlightening moment. Though I knew nothing of the area's history at the time, the "Jim Jam Ridge," California 2 map or in the mind-until it bears Creek, Hanalei Bay and Dripping a proper (or improper) sobriquet. Blood Mountain are the stories of It isn't just a matter of getting from hundreds of people who explored, one place to another, though God surveyed and settled the continent. knows it's easier to get from Often, these adventurers named Atchison to Topeka with names land features spontaneously, as than it would be without them. with Jim Jam Ridge. But at times, Geographical labels are also they chose to immortalize famous necessary because they affect the individuals, leaving us with such way we perceive the world around legacies as a city named after an us. If it weren't for its name, most Italian explorer (Columbus), a of us might never know that mountain named after a noted Pikes Peak even exists. geologist (Whitney), a mining town In the U.S., the greatest named after a Swedish soprano collection of geographical names­ (Jenny Lind) and a river named some three million of them in after a British sea captain (Hudson). all-are found on the more than When the first European 30,000 topographic maps published explorers ventured into the New by the U.S. Geological Survey World, they encountered a wide (USGS). The most familiar "topos" assortment of Indian names for are the ?Y2 -minute series used by geographical features~ Many of backpackers, hunters and fisher­ those early explorers were either men. On these maps, one inch French or Spanish, and in recording equals 2,000 feet in the field. Each the native terms in their own map_covers roughly 50 to 75 square languages, they invariably changed miles of the earth's surface. them. In the Great Lakes region, Whereas most road maps and for example, the Frenchmen family atlases designate man-made Marquette and Joliet traveled places and only the most prominent through a vast scenic territory that natural features, topos include the the local Indians called names, positions and elevations "Mesconsing," a word meaning of virtually every landform in an "the long river." In their diaries, area-no matter how small. That the two men spelled it out as makes them the most detailed "Quisconsing." Years later, the records available of not only the name was further changed to country's landscape, but its "Wisconsin." In time, thousands of nomenclature as well. other Indian words were similarly "In a sense, the names of these adapted, leaving a heritage that maps are the language with which today includes the names of 26 states the nation's autobiography is (among them Alabama, Connecti­ written," says Donald Orth, cut, Kentucky), 18 major cities executive secretary of the U.S. (Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle), Board on Geographic Names. most of our largest lakes and rivers Indeed, behind such appellations as (Ontario, Tahoe, Mississippi), and Shirttail Gulch, Tish-Tank-a-Tang thousands of small communities, 3 "Cape Cod," Masaacl:lusetta from Apache Junction, Arizona, to most of their coastal settlements Zilwaukee, Michigan. not for animals but for their own While the French were explor­ hometowns. In New England, the ing the interior, the English were Massachusetts Bay Company set up getting established along the a court that, among other things, Atlantic Seaboard. On a spring day dictatprially decreed the name in 1602, a British sea captain for each new township in the named Bartholomew Gosnold colony. As a result, the region anchored his ship off the coast of became dotted with English names what would later become Massa­ like Roxbury, Newberry, Dorchester chusetts. That day, his crew "took and Plymouth. Apparently, how­ great stores of codfish," causing the ever, the English were less loyal to clever captain to name an adjacent their homeland when naming point "Cape Cod." It was the first natural features, One of their first time an Englishman would riame New World surveyors, William Byrd, a North American landform for named a small Virginia stream some member of the animal "Buffato Creek" because of the kingdom. "frequent tokens" he found there Feeling a bit homesick, the on the ground. During the same early British colonists christened early eighteenth century expedition, 4 "WIIIamette River," Oregon Byrd gave one North Carolina peak the people," observes researcher a title that would eventually .spread George R. Stewart. According to throughout the entire continent: Stewart, the list of places named "Lover's Leap." Today, no state after the father of our country today is without at least one. includes one state, 32 counties, After the Revolutionary War, 121 cities and towns, 257 smaller Americans no longer wanted to townships, and dozens of lakes, name places for their European streams and mountains. origins. Instead they turned to In the early days, most heroes of the war. Soon, a number geographical names were chosen of communities were named for informally, sometimes out of such leaders as Franklin, Adams, anguish, sometimes out of joy, often Lafayette and Pulaski. Needless to on the spur of the moment. A case say, however, the most popular in point was an incident during the name of the period was that of the travels of Lewis and Clark. Upon new nation's first president. The seeing a body of water in the first places to be named for him distance, according to one were on Manhattan Island: Fort undoubtedly apocryphal account, Washington and Washington Lewis said to William Clark: "Will, Heights. "After that, there was no am it a river?" Thus, Oregon's ending, for the name of the man · Willamette River was said to be had come to stand for the hopes of named. 5 Throughout the 1800s, such store owner, while applying for an spontaneity was often the rule. Cut official U.S. Post Office listing. Clio, and Shoot, Texas, for example, was California, for instance, was named named after a community shootout by a shopkeeper for a can of over the shape of a new church sardines on his shelf. Licking, steeple. One winter in Wisconsin, Missouri, was chosen by a local a railroad crew passed through the clerk who hunted at a natural salt town of Cedarhurst and stopped lick just outside of town, where deer to put up a new sign over the depot. were plentiful. Nearby, another According to one local report, a store owner applied for a postal crew member was so upset over the listing under the name "Excelsior," minus-50-degree weather that he but was turned down because the renamed the town on the spot, title was already claimed in putting up a sign that read: "Chili, Missouri. In response, he wrote Wisconsin." The title stuck. At back saying that any name would about the same time, in Alabama, do, as long as it was "different or a logging crew reported that every peculiar." A few weeks later, time its train passed through a federal officials notified him that he small village near their camp, the was the postmaster of Peculiar, people standing by the tracks were Missouri. scratching their ankles. Evidently, Because many settlers tended the horses and cows held in pens to stay put once they established a beside the tracks attracted a large home, they gave little thought to number of biting flies. The result: the names they chose. As a result, Scratch Ankle, Alabama. there are now some 40 Goose Lakes At times, accidental names in Michigan, 75 Long Lakes and were created by a harried country more than 250 Mud Lakes. The "Cut and Shoot," Texas 6 latter appears to have been a nearly a dozen other towns already popular term throughout the Great had the name. Lakes region, since nearly every Among animal names, the county in both Wisconsin and most common by far are those that Minnesota has at least one Mud refer to birds. According to Walter Lake. In California, more than 500 Ristow, a map expert with the U.S. geographical features are named Library of Congress, the eagle after the bear, another 200 are surpasses all other species as a named "Rattlesnake," and nearly place-name source, followed 100 mountains are known as either closely by such easily observable "bald" or "baldy." At one time in large birds as the swan, the goose, New York, so many communities the turkey and the duck.