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Tapestry Map of Oregon, by Judith Poxson Fawkes [1]

Word Smith: Oregon

There are many plausible explanations for how and why the state of Oregon has the spelling that it does. And there are also so highly implausible explanations as well. Example: In 1778 Jonathan Carver, an explorer of “the river in the west,” used a form of Oregon in a passage from his journals. He was describing the names of the four great rivers of the North American continent: “The River Bourbon, which empties itself into Hudson’s Bay; the Waters of Saint Lawrence, the Mississippi and the river Oregon, or the River of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the Straits of Annian.” In Carver’s case he is referring to the rivers on the continent and not to the land, however, no other explorers, such as Robert Gray (1790) [2], George Vancouver (1790), and Lewis & Clark (1805), made such a name reference.

Other “name derivation experts” have proported that the state of Oregon got its name from the Spanish word Oreja (the ear) supposing that the Spaniards noted the big ears of the native Indians and named the country for the physical circumstance. But the Spanish themselves have left no record of the kind, nor has it been noted that the ears of the Indian tribes in the territory were remarkably large in any way. [3]

Many years ago the Archbishop of Oregon, Fr. François N. Blanchet, researched the writings of historian George Stewart. “Stewart propounds that the origin was an engraver’s error naming the Ouisconsink (Wisconsin) River on certain French editions of Lahontan’s maps published in the early 1700s. In early editions of the map, the name was not only misspelled Ouarisonsint, but also hyphenated after Ouaricon, with the final syllable offset.” Stewart believed that Major Robert Rogers, an English army officer at the frontier military post at Mackinac, used the form Ouragon or Ourigan in petition for an expedition of the country west of the Great Lakes.

There are many other versions out there on the derivation of the name Oregon, even the Moderist Poet T.S. Eliot weighed in, as did Joaquin Miller, the American Poet of the Sierra’s. The matter of the moniker seems settled, though the origin of the name itself remains a topic of debate.

References:

[1] Judith Poxson Fawkes, Map of Oregon 7×8 feet linen tapestry, 1996. Exhibited at Laura Russo Gallery; Collection of the United States General Services Admin.

[2] Explorer Robert Gray was the first American who claimed to circumnavigate the globe (1787-1790). He also is credited with the naming of the river that would become the dividing line between the Washington and Oregon, “Columbia,” which was the name of his ship, fully known as the Columbia Rediviva.

[3] References researched and published by Lewis A. McArthur (1917 – 2018), Oregon Geographic Names, University of Washington Press. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. Lewis Ankeny McArthur, known as “Tam” McArthur, was an executive for Pacific Power and Light Company. He was also the secretary for the Oregon Geographic Board for many years and the author of many books and articles, including Oregon Geographic Names. He lived until he was 101 years old.