Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/420

 construction a civil engineer connected with the right-of-way operations for the Oregon and California Rail Road Company. The railroad was opened to traffic from Grants Pass to Phoenix in 1884. The name was apparently applied shortly before that date. In August, 1927, David Loring was living in Portland, and in conversation with the compiler confirmed Mr. Koehler's statement. Mr. Loring said that while the form of the name was suggested by Medford, Massachusetts, he really named the new community in Oregon because it was situated at the middle ford on Bear Creek. Mr. Loring was a native of Massachusetts. People in Jacksonville were not enthusiastic about the new rival community of Medford and referred to it as Chaparral City. The best authorities seem to agree that the name of Medford, Massachusetts, comes from the old English words mead and ford, meaning a ford at a meadow. Mr. Loring may have had in mind a combination of mede and ford, in which mede is an obsolete abbreviation for medium, hence middle.

, Union County. Medical Springs is a descriptive name applied to the hot sulphur springs at that place.

, Wallowa County. Jake Sheets got sick on this stream, and his companions, Charles and James Rice, mixed up all the medicine they had and forced him to take it. The mixture nearly killed him. The stream was named to commemorate the dose.

, Lincoln County. Medicine Rock is a well-known point on the north or left bank of Siletz River about five miles upstream from the mouth. In this locality the river flows eastward. The geography of the location is shown on the Geological Survey map of the Euchre Mountain quadrangle. The rock was named because of an Indian custom of leaving offerings at its base. The rock was supposed to be the abode of a Skookum, or bad medicine man, whom the Indians propitiated by giving articles of food, pieces of cloth and sometimes native tools and fishhooks.

, Clatsop County. Medley post office was established early in 1890 with William Medley first and only postmaster. It was named in his compliment. The office was nearly three miles west of and up Fishhawk Creek from Jewell, and was therefore not far from an earlier post office called Denver, which had been closed in 1888. Medley post office was closed January 2, 1904, with papers to Jewell.

, Klamath County. This small lake is west of Crescent Lake and near the summit of the Cascade Range. It is said to have been named because of some incident connected with a party of immigrants traveling over the Meek Cutoff through central Oregon. However, the Meek Cutoff was not in the vicinity of the lake, although a party of immigrants may have left the cutoff and passed by the lake.

, Marion County. This town was named for Mehama Smith, wife of James X. Smith, who laid out the townsite and who operated a ferry on North Santiam River in pioneer days. A post office with the name Mehamah was established March 12, 1877, with John J. Blair first postmaster. The error was corrected and the name of the office changed to Mehama on March 30, 1881. Lewis Stout ran a ferry at this place before Smith Ferry was put in operation.

, Douglas County. Melrose was named for Melrose Abbey in Scotland, by Henry Scott. Scott was a native of Scotland and came from near Melrose Abbey. A post office named Hogan was established