{"id":17135,"date":"2016-09-08T16:13:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T21:13:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=17135"},"modified":"2021-11-18T07:17:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-18T12:17:01","slug":"presidential-layers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/presidential-layers\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Layers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Twelve Mile Circle discovered quite the layering of Presidential place names recently, completely by accident. I tried to find a better example during the larger part of an afternoon and never came close. Someone from the audience should feel free to post a comment with better results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Washington State<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Washington<\/a>
Washington State Capitol<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

George Washington as the first President of the United States certainly deserved places named for him in abundance. He probably didn’t need Washington Ditch<\/a> although I couldn’t fault those responsible for digging a path through a swamp for seizing the opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York City served as the US capital at George Washington’s inauguration in 1789 and it moved to Philadelphia the following year. In 1791, Washington appointed a commission to establish a new capital city in accordance with the Residence Act. The Commissioners came up with a new name for the city… Washington. I mentioned that because a really important place — namely the capital city of the United States — honored George Washington from the very earliest days of the nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Settlers moving to the Pacific Northwest north of the Columbia River wished to split from the previously-established Oregon Territory in 1853. They wanted to call their news state Columbia. Oregon Territory’s nonvoting representative in Congress took their case to the floor of the House of Representatives. Then things took a strange twist<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Upon the completion of Lane’s speech, a new issue was injected into the proceedings. Suddenly the question was not whether the new territory should be created, but what name it should be called. Representative Richard Stanton of Kentucky rose and moved that the bill be amended by striking the word ‘Columbia’ wherever it occurred and substituting ‘Washington.’ The House then voted favorably on the motion.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Despite legends to the contrary, the change was actually just one of those things that happened on a whim. They weren’t trying to prevent confusion with the District of Columbia. Congress simply wanted to honor George Washington even more. Thus the US ended up with a Washington State (map<\/a>) not a Columbia State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lincoln County<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Lincoln<\/a>
Lincoln County Courthouse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Washington State eventually subdivided into 39 counties. Several of them honored presidents other than Washington: Adams; Garfield; Grant; Lincoln; Jefferson and Pierce. Lincoln County (map<\/a>) appeared in 1883, one of many places named for Abraham Lincoln in the US in the decades immediately following his assassination. The western states settled quickly during that era. Only Native Americans lived in what became Lincoln County<\/a> just a decade earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“‘Wild Goose Bill’ (Samuel Wilbur Condit) might have justly claimed the honor of being the first actual white settler of Lincoln County as he claims his advent into this country as a settler where the town of Wilbur now stands in 1875. Wilbur, named for its founder in 1887, was incorporated in 1889. While out hunting Mr. Condit once mistook a settler\u2019s poultry and shot a fat gander. Ever after he was known as ‘Wild Goose Bill’. Before he platted and named Wilbur, his trading place was known as ‘Goosetown’.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I liked that some guy accidentally shot a neighbor’s goose and they stuck him with a ridiculous lifelong nickname. People on the frontier could be cruel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lincoln (community)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n