The great Southwest is a beautiful place. This month we traveled from Colorado Springs to Phoenix to San Diego to Fort Huachuca to Phoenix and back home. At each location there was personal history and family. It was fun to explore some of the history and always a good time to be with family. The difficult part is the space between destinations...the long empty space. All along the way we made a few notes and observations and thought it would be fun to share a few of them with our blog pals.
The first observation has to do with place names. Most places in the Southwest Desert have interesting stories attached to their names; many of them are of Spanish origin, or are Spanish words chosen by non-Spanish speakers. Some are Indian from one tribe or another, but some defy explanation. For example: Mesa Verde, Arizona means Green Table...but Table Mesa, New Mexico means Table Table. Picacho Peak near Casa Grande, Arizona is an impressive rock formation whose name means Peak Peak.
A lot of places like Jerome and Holbrook are named after people, either prominent citizens or founders. But who named Two Guns, Arizona? And right down the road is Twin Arrows. I always thought it would be cool to have an address in Two Guns.
Some place names stem from terrain features; there is a town of Picacho near the mountain. There are a lot of dry river beds all over the desert; many are called "washes" or "arroyos". An arroyo is a stream bed by definition but most of the named arroyos are dry...like the one called "Arroyo Seco" which means "Dry Wash". When we passed over the bridge spanning Coyote Wash, the sign announcing it conjured up a vision of scruffy-looking coyotes dashing across the desert to line up for a bath.
The town of Plaster City, California earned its name. For as far back as I can remember, the whole town and its surroundings have been covered with a film of plaster dust from the plant there that manufactures plaster. The interstate runs a couple of miles south of the old Highway 80 so travelers can see the town but don't have to drive through the dust like they did in the old days.
Bloody Basin, Rustler's Gulch, Eight-Mile Creek, and such are typical western town names that come from some event or even a measurement. But while you might think that the town of Snowflake might have something to do with the weather, it was actually named after two of its earliest settlers, Mr. Snow and Mr. Flake...and that is the truth.
Many towns are named after Indian tribes: Pima, Yuma, Mojave, , etc. I thought it interesting that the town of Holbrook has a very plain name but all the streets are named after tribes...did the founders have second thoughts?
Nowdays the trend has reversed itself; at least in our family, there are a number of children named for towns. The most recent is Phoenix...born in Nashville...go figure.
I live in a western town with a very plain name...surrounded by plain sounding towns...but not far from here is Cripple Creek, Punkin Center (yep, that's how they spell it), Durango (a very western-sounding town), Pueblo, and Alamosa...and I am sure they all have some kind of story as to how they came to have their name. I will leave you with my favorite...the town of Rolla, Missouri. The town founders wanted to name their town in honor of a great hero but no one knew how to spell Sir Walter's last name and that is also a true story.