One-Minute History Lesson
Cities So Nice They Named Them Twice
LOCAL BUREAUCRATS ARE STILL trying to live down the SLUT, even though they speedily renamed their trolley the South Lake Union Streetcar. But take heart, City Hall; all these ill-chosen monikers are scarcely remembered today outside the pages of James W. Phillips’s Washington State Place Names: Redmond was originally Salmonberg. Would Microsoft have become Microsoft in Salmonberg? Renton was Black River Bridge, but that made less sense after the Black River dried up. A nearby town was christened Slaughter to honor a soldier fallen in the 1855 Indian War. Its citizens got sick of hearing their hotel called the Slaughter House and renamed their town Auburn. What’s now Ilwaco was supposed to be Unity, but no one could agree. The early pioneers on the Duwamish River made the most auspicious switch of all when they settled what is now the state’s largest city. They exchanged Duwamps for the name of a native chief. You know who.
Published: July 2008
