DOE/EIS-0332; McNary-John Day Transmission Line Project Draft ...

BPA McNary-John Day Transmission Project
Draft EIS
February 2002
Cultural Resources
A sketch of several historic place names along the McNary to John Day Transmission
project corridor is provided below. The information is taken from Washington Place
Names compiled by Gary Fuller Reese of the Tacoma Public Library’s Northwest Room/
Special Collections (Tacoma Public Library 2001).
Plymouth is a community near the Columbia River opposite Umatilla, Oregon in south-
central Benton County. The name was chosen because of a huge basalt rock that projects
into the river. The name suggested by the railroaders was Gibraltar, but patriotic settlers
settled on the American name for the famous rock in Massachusetts. The Native
American name for the locality is said to be “So-loo-sa.”
Whitcomb is a settlement a mile and a quarter north of the Columbia River on the south
side of Canoe Ridge in southwest Benton County. The original name, Luzon, was
changed to the present name at the suggestion of two landowners, James A. Moore and
G. Henry Whitcomb, in honor of the latter. The Luzon Land Company platted a 40-acre
townsite in February 1909. A post office was established in 1910 and was closed in
1934.
Carley was a railroad station north of the Columbia River directly south of Canoe Ridge
in southwest Benton County. It was on a site settled in 1904 by Myron E. Carley who
was an inventor and had a machine shop. Other family members had a store and post
office that operated until September 1941. Officials of the Spokane, Portland & Seattle
Railway, in honor of Mr. Carley, named their railroad station after him.
Paterson is on the north bank of the Columbia River on a south slope of Paterson Ridge
directly upstream from Blalock Island in southwest Benton County. The name of
Henry T. Paterson, a pioneer settler, was applied to the settlement, the ridge, and to
nearby the springs. The Paterson ferry operated during the major Columbia River flood
of 1948 and offered the only crossriver passage for many miles up- and downstream.
Paterson Ridge is north of the Columbia River and runs southwest to northeast above
Blalock Island. It is divided by Glade Creek that runs from the north joining the
Columbia River near the community of Paterson. The ridge is approximately 30 miles
south of Prosser and is in a vineyard and orchard area.
Dead Canyon is in northeast Klickitat County. It runs southeasterly through the
southwest corner of Benton County and terminates on the north bank of the Columbia
River near Crow Butte. Local residents applied the name of Dead Horse Canyon in the
winter of 1886-1887, when hundreds of horses and cattle starved or were frozen to death
in the canyon. Within recent years, cartographers have dropped the “Horse” from the
place name.
Alder Creek rises in the east central region of Klickitat County and flows south and east
10 miles to the Columbia River at Alderdale. It was named for the many alder trees
along portions of its course.
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