What's in a name?

I attended an historical presentation last night at the Bonner County Museum. Virginia Overland, one of the dedicated volunteers and historians, put on the slide show about the Hoodoo Valley, which is southwest of Sandpoint. Virgina spoke to a crowd that took up every chair and seeped out into the museum lobby. From what I've heard, that happens often at our local historical repository when the neighborhood histories come to town.

Since I was one who stood in the lobby, I did not stay for the entire presentation. Those old legs finally told me it was time for a break, one hour into the program. During the time, I was there, however, I picked up a lot of fascinating information.

For example, I never knew the lovely fishing stream, called Hoodoo Creek where my husband goes every opening day with his fly rod, had been formed from a 24-hour dredging process in 1916. Apparently, there was a shallow lake which flooded the valley until the stream was dredged by a strange, loud-sounding machine called "Leaping Louie." Its pounding kept the neighborhood awake at night. With that process, came 15 miles of stream bed winding through the area, which had been transformed enough for farmers to plant their crops without fear of flooding.

Communities rose up and fizzled within the valley, some from the heavy logging of huger-than-huge yellow pine, et. al. that occurred when Humbird Lumber Co. came to North Idaho in the early 1900s. There was Clagstone (named for a rich man from Spokane who homesteaded there and eventually held up to 10,000 acres of land. His beautiful mansion burned to the ground when a forest fire swept through in the '30s). Harlem, Vay, Edgemere and Sawyer were also mentioned. Virginia couldn't tell us why Harlem got its name. The Sawyer family had a store, so that made sense.

Probably the most interesting bit of trivia for me last night, however, was learning the reasoning behind the naming of Vay. I'd never questioned it in my entire life, just accepted the name. Vay, however, has roots that parallel Sagle's name. According to Virginia, when names for towns were being considered, the little community was first called Valley. There was, however, another community in Washington with the same name, so the folks in charge just took a couple of letters out of the name and settled for Vay.

Same thing happened with Sagle, a community across the river just south of Sandpoint. I learned Sagle's story a few years ago down at the museum. Again, it was another town name for which I'd never held any curiosity. I was fascinated to learn that when the bureaucratic honchos who deal with such things discovered two "Eagles" in Idaho, the south won out. The town northwest of Boise remained as such, while a letter was changed up north, resulting in "Sagle."

I'm always amazed at the great little tidbits that go along with place names. In my own neighborhood, we've live on Great Northern Road but the Burlington Northern Santa Fe now runs over the tracks. History, however, will explain the name, since the Great Northern Railroad orginally used the route, which provided a reason for folks like the Farmins (railroad agents/telegraphers) to come here from the Midwest in the first place. Mr. L.D. Farmin eventually platted Sandpoint, explaining why the Farmin name has appeared several places around the community. Most prominent is the school named for them, which once stood as a three-story brick building in the middle of downtown Sandpoint. Now it's not far from those old Great Northern tracks in northwest Sandpoint.

We've also recently seen the dedication of the newly constructed the Mickinnick Trail on Greenhorn Mountain near our home. The hiking/biking trail earned its name, thanks to the donation of 300 acres of land on the mountainside from Mick and Nick Pleass. So, with a few alterations, "Mick" and "Nick" were meshed with "kinnikinnick," a well-known plant which grows in dry areas---especially on mountainsides---to form the trail's name. And, by the way, speaking of Greenhorn Mountain, when the orginators were first considering constructing the trail, they described its location on an "unnamed mountain" near Sandpoint.

We, who've lived in this neighborhood forever, have been campaigning for the power brokers of name-calling to refer to our mountain by what we've called it our entire lives: Greenhorn. We've found, however, that it's easier said than done to get a name to stick, but since my mother calls her greeting cards Greenhorn Mountain Scenics (that's more than 30 years), and since my (in name only) publishing company is Greenhorn Mountain Press, we're hoping someone will get the hint and give the "unnamed mountain" its proper name----permanently.

Fifty-plus years of such name-calling should be adequate, shouldn't it? Greenhorn, Greenhorn, Greenhorn, Greenhorn . . . . !

Look at what Virginia Overland started!!!