Every place has a name and a history. Take, for example, the small community that lies on the southwest corner of Bear Lake in Rich County.
It's called Pickleville - but not because homemakers there work magic with cucumbers and vinegar. The name honors Charles C. Pickel, an engineer who oversaw improvements to the town's water supply.Or consider Sandy in Salt Lake County. Some say its name is derived from the sandy bench on which the city sits. Others attribute the name to Alexander Kinghorn, the popular engineer of the first locomotive to pull into the town.
Kinghorn was red-headed and sandy-bearded and, apparently, was never forgotten.
John W. Van Cott, Orem, has tucked those bits of fact and folklore away in "Utah Place Names," a compendium packed with information about the names of just about everything in the state. Rivers, mountains, gullies, cities and counties - yes, even the names of major rocks have not been left unturned by Van Cott.
Adam may have named all the cattle, the fowl of the air and the beasts of the field, but early Utah inhabitants, explorers and Mormon pioneers get the credit for most place names in the state, Van Cott said. The names they chose reflected their experiences, the women they loved and the beauty - or horrors - of the life they saw around them.
Consider:
- Minnie Maude Creek in Carbon County, named by Alfred Lunt, who settled there in 1885, after his two daughters.
- Parowan, Iron County, an evolution of the Piute word "paragoons" and "paho-an," which mean "marsh people" and "bad water."
- Bluebell in Duchesne County, suggested by Heber Powell because of the bluebells that grew around the area.
- Kaysville, named after William Kay, who settled there around 1850 and was the area's first Mormon bishop.
Van Cott spent 18 years as the supervisor of the general botany laboratories in the botany and range science department at Brigham Young University. His interest in place names was kindled during the summer of 1941 while working for the U.S. Grazing Service in "Nigger Bill Canyon," now called Negro Bill Canyon.
The name, Van Cott learned, commemorates William Granstaff, a mulatto who lived in an abandoned fort near Moab and ran cattle in nearby Spanish Valley around 1880.
"It gradually started from there," said Van Cott of his interest in place names.
Such an interest has spanned 50 years, culminating in Van Cott's book, which is the most comprehensive work of its kind. The book was published last year by the University of Utah Press.
"In a book of this kind, where you have numerous details that have to be checked and verified and rechecked, there are numerous places for error,"
said Jay Haymond, executive secretary for the Utah Committee for Geographic Names, which operates under the auspices of the Utah Division of State History.
"In spite of that, John has done an excellent job," Haymond said. "The book is reliable and can be used with some confidence."
In fact, the Utah Committee for Geographic Names relies on the book as a reference "when we're sitting around deliberating names."
Van Cott is pained by the knowledge a mistake or two crept into his book.
One error in particular weighs heavily on him: he attributed the name of the Logan River to Ephraim Logan, a mountain man who traveled with explorers William H. Ashley and Jedediah Smith and died along the river.
"It was not Ephraim Logan but Eph, the old grizzly bear" that was killed around 1923 and buried in the canyon along the river, Van Cott said. "I think the man that brought it to my attention is right."
There will be room to correct that omission and others in future editions.
But for now, Van Cott's book is the best bet when you want to know where you are, what it's named and why.
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(Additional information)
By any other name...
The story behind some place names in Utah, as noted by John W. Van Cott in his book "Utah Place Names:"
- Altamont, Duchesne County, owes its name to the high school student body of 1936, which sponsored a naming contest. The winning entry is a contraction of Altonah and Mt. Emmons, nearby locales, and was submitted by Clarence Synder.
- Roy is named after the deceased son of David P. Peebles, a prominent citizen around 1894.
- Kings Peak, Utah's highest point and topic of many name-origin debates, is named after Clarence King, an early director of the U.S. Geological Survey.
- Lynndyl in Millard County relies on folklore for its name. During the time the railroad was under construction in the area, a telegrapher was asked where she was. She glanced at her shoe and noticed "Lynn, Mass" printed on it. Lynn, she said. Later "dyl" was added to the name to distinguish it from a Lynn in Box Elder County.
- Mount Ellen in the Henry Mountains in Garfield County is named after John Wesley Powell's sister, who was married to Almon Thompson, Powell's second commander.
- Levan is located south of Nephi in Juab County. The word "Levan" could be French, Latin or Piute and could mean Land of the Sunrise, East of the Sunrise, Rear Rank of a Moving Army or Little Water.
Then again, as some have noted, the city is located almost dead center in the state. Read backwards, Levan is "navel."
- Bicknell and Blanding owe their names to a stranger from Rhode Island. Thomas W. Bicknell was a historian and educator from Providence, R.I. In 1914 he offered 1,000 library books to any town in Utah that would bear his name.
According to Van Cott, George C. Brinkerhoff, who was serving a mission in Rhode Island, approached Bicknell and told him two towns in Utah wanted to take up his offer: Thurber in Wayne County and Grayson in San Juan County.
A compromise was struck, with Thurber becoming Bicknell and Grayson becoming Blanding, the maiden name of Bicknell's wife. Each town got 500 books.
- Veyo, 18 miles north of St. George in Washington County, was named by a group of Mormon "Beehive" girls. The names stands for virtue, enterprise, youth and order.
- In Beaver County there are the Wah Wah Mountains, Wah Wah Springs and Wah Wah Wash: it all means "good, clear water."