Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/618

 land, for many years civil engineers in Oregon, both informed the compiler that there was no truth in the three links story. They were in the neighborhood of the stream at the time it was named. They are authority for the statement that one of the Austin family, early settlers nearby, named the stream Three Lynx Creek because he saw three bobcats on its banks. The USBGN has adopted the name Three Lynx.

THREE SISTERS, Deschutes and Lane counties. These peaks are among the most interesting in Oregon. There are but two higher mountains in the state, and the Three Sisters, together with Broken Top, comprise the most majestic alpine group in the Cascade Range in Oregon. The writer has been unable to learn who named the Three Sisters, and they are not frequently mentioned either by explorers or pioneers. The earliest mention of these mountains, as far as known, is by David Douglas, as follows: "Thursday 5th. [October 1826.] After a scanty breakfast proceeded at nine o'clock in a south course. Country more hilly. At one o'clock passed on the left, about twenty-five or thirty miles distant, Mount Jefferson, of Lewis and Clarke, covered with snow as low as the summit of the lower mountains by which it is surrounded. About twenty miles to the east of it, two mountains of greater altitude are to be seen, also covered with snow, in an unknown tract of country called by the natives who inhabit it 'Clamite'." (Journal Kept by David Douglas, London, 1914, page 216.) From certain positions the Three Sisters appear as two mountains, and Douglas' mistake was natural. The mountains appear as the Three Sisters on Preston's Map of Oregon, 1856. There is a story to the effect that at one time the three mountains were known as Mount Faith, Mount Hope and Mount Charity, beginning at the north. In 1927 William P. Vandevert of Bend, a native son of Oregon, confirmed this, and informed the compiler that when a youth, he was often told that the name Three Sisters was originally applied by members of the Methodist mission at Salem in the early '40s, and that the individual peaks were given the names mentioned above. In 1928 John C. Todd of Bend told the compiler that in early days he heard the Three Sisters called Faith, Hope and Charity many times. The best information about the Three Sisters is that contained in USGS Bulletin 252, by Dr. I. C. Russell; in Mineral Resources of Oregon, volume I, No. 1; in Mazama for October 1912 and December 1916 and 1922; in Mount Multnomah by Professor E. T. Hodge and in Vational Geographic Magazine, June 1912. In the summer of 1944 the University of California Press issued Howel Williamsl'olcanoes of the Three Sisters Region, a valuable contribution to the knowledge of the area. It contains some very fine plates. Williams controverts the notion that there was a Mount Multnomah.

THREEBUCK CREEK, Wallowa County. This stream flows into Little Sheep Creek in township 2 south, range 46 cast, and was named by J. J. Blevans and his son Murat Blevans, in 1878, because the two had good luck there hunting. They were getting food for the white people who were in the Prairie Creek stockade.

THREEMILE CANYON, Morrow County. Threemile Canvon is about three miles cast of the mouth of Willow Creek, and is so called on that account.