Naming Names

Naming Names

I’m doing a bit of historical research for some future blog postings and found a reference to all of the prior names for first paved road we come to.  Now all of these names are white man names.  However, I imagine the Clackamas Indians had a name for their path between the Sandy River and the foothills to the north.  Probably something like “Ancestors to the North Keep Me From this Crazy River Path”.  And their name more than likely stayed the same for 1000 years or more.

Come 1840’s and Sam Barlow pioneered this part of the Oregon Trail.  He went to the Oregon Territory Governor and sought permission to charge tolls.  So the name of the road became Barlow Road.   The revenue he collected helped to clear and maintain the road.  According to a pamphlet titled Barlow Road (issued jointly by the Clackamas County Historical Society and Wasco County Historical Society in 1974) the part of the Barlow Road that starts from E. Lolo Pass going west to Rock Corral, had the following names:

The name in the early 1900’s was known as Hackett Road, later North Brightwood Road.  Recently it was designated Truman Road at the time the road from Lolo Pass to Zigzag was designated the Lolo Pass Road.

Now the road is known as E. Barlow Trail Road.  So sometime after 1974 the County renamed this stretch of the road again.  And got it wrong.  The historical purists point out that the Road was never called a “Trail”.  The Barlow Road was part of the Oregon Trail but never called a trail … until recently.  The footprints of the indigenous peoples are long gone, the wagon wheel ruts can be seen in some spots, and, when we are lucky, we have yellow and white painted lines on long strips of asphalt.  I wonder what the name will be changed to when this stretch of road is renamed next time.