Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/238

 piler has been unable to get the reason for the name Etna. There does not seem to have been any member of the Riggs family named Etna. Cecil Riggs wrote in January, 1947, that he had always thought the office was named for the mountain on the east coast of Sicily, but perhaps without any definite reason. Mount Etna had a violent eruption in 1852, which may have been news in the Willamette Valley soon enough to produce a post office name in 1856. This is no more than a theory.

EUCHRE BUTTE, Lake County. This is a prominent mountain north of Lake Abert. It is said to have been so named because of an historic card game played nearby by cowboys in pioneer days.

EUCHRE CREEK, Curry County. This stream apparently takes its name from the Tututni Indian band Yukichetunne. The name indicates "people at the mouth of the river." The Handbook of American Indians, among others, gives the following forms of the name: Euchees, Eucher, Euchre, Eu-qua-chee, Uchres and Yoquichacs. George Davidson, in the Coast Pilot, 1889, page 373, refers to the stream as Ukah Creek for the U-kahtan-nae Indians. Miners applied the style Euchre Creek in the early '50s, apparently influenced by the name of the popular card game. Davidson says that the stream was also called Savage Creek, but that name is not explained and has not persisted.

EUCHRE MOUNTAIN, Lincoln County. Accurate information about the name of Euchre Mountain seems hard to obtain, but it is generally believed that the word Euchre was used by pioneer surveyors as an approximation of the Indian name of the mountain. The correct pronunciation and meaning of the Indian name are not now available. The

USGS gives the height of Euchre Mountain as 2446 feet.

EUGENE, Lane County. Eugene F. Skinner took his land claim at Eugene at the foot of Skinner Butte in 1846, and built his cabin, and in 1847 moved his family into it. His wife, Mary Cook Skinner, was the first white woman to dwell in Lane County. Skinner came to Oregon in 1846, and first settled at Dallas. He was born September 13, 1809, in Essex County, New York; died at Eugene December 15, 1864. His wife was born February 7, 1816; died June 4, 1881. Eugene City in 1855 is described by Thomas J. Dryer in the Oregonian, June 23, 1855. The first steamboat to ascend the Willamette River to Eugene was the James Clinton, March 3, 1857, (ibid., March 21, 1857). The Indian name of Skinner Butte was Ya-po-ah (ibid., April 23, 1897, page 3), or Ya-po-oh (ibid., November 17, 1890). For notes on Eugene in 1885, ibid., January 31, 1885. This post office was established with the name Skinner's on January 8, 1850, with Eugene F. Skinner postmaster. The name was changed to Eugene City on September 3, 1853, and to Eugene on May 29, 1889.

EUGENE GLACIER, Lane County. Eugene Glacier is on the north slope of South Sister, between Skinner and Lost Creek glaciers. It was named for the city of Eugene in 1924 by Professor Edwin T. Hodge of the University of Oregon.

EULA, Lane County. Eula post office was named for Eula Blakely, daughter of Joe Blakely, an early resident. The post office was established about the time the railroad was built, with the name Blakelyville, but the railroad company adopted a shorter name, Eula. To avoid confusion, postal officials changed the name of the office to Eula, and both station and office operated with this name until about 1925 when