Oregon’s Swastika Mountain got its name long before the Nazis rose to power—and in the many years since then, for reasons unknown, the namehas endured. But now, activists are pushing to change it.
The change comes, in part, thanks to Oregon resident Joyce McClain, who first learned about the ill-named butte after reading a news report back in January about two hikers who were rescued from a snowstorm on Swastika Mountain.
“I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and so I had to do something about it,” McClain tells KEZI-TV.
After some research, McClain discovered that the mountain got its moniker from a tiny, extinct town called Swastika, named after a cattle rancher who branded his cattle with the symbol in the early 1900s.
“It is not a very well-known mountain, and frankly, I didn’t know there was one,” Kerry Tymchuk of the Oregon Historical Society tells NPR’s Dustin Jones. “It’s in a national forest, not accessible to many people like Mount Hood or Mount St. Helen. It’s not very well-known throughout the state; the vast majority of people likely never even knew it was there.”
At the time when rancher Clayton E. Burton chose to brand his cattle with theswastika, the symbol, which in Sanskrit translates to “well-being,” carried a different meaning than it does today. It had been long used by many religions and was considered a symbol of good fortune. Even in the years immediately preceding Nazi Germany, itcould be found everywhere from Coca-Colaproducts to publications from the Boy Scouts and the Girls’ Club of America. The swastika even appeared in World War I, when members of an American infantry division wore it on their shoulder patches.
The meaning behind the swastika changed once it became associated with the Nazis. In the late 19th century, German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the symbol at the site of ancient Troy, and he hypothesized that it was a “significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors,” per the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Racist groups then began interpreting the swastika as a symbol of “Aryan identity,” and the Nazi Party officially adopted it as its symbol in 1920. It is still used by today’s white supremacists.
Even though Swastika Mountain has no connection to Nazism or white supremacy, officials believe a change is long overdue. McClain originally suggested the name Umpqua Mountain, after the Native American tribe that first lived there. David Lewis, a tribal historian, suggested renaming it Mount Halo, after Chief Halito, leader of the Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe, who had lived some 20 miles from the mountain. McClain ended up preferring Mount Halo and withdrew her suggestion. A final decision for the renaming will be made in December.
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The US Board on Geographic Names unanimously approved and then announced on April 13 the name change to Mount Halo, a reference in honor of Chief Halito of the Yoncalla Kalapuya Tribe, according to Kerry Tymchuk, the Boyle Family executive director of the Oregon Historical Society.
In April, the Oregon resident convinced the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) to rebrand the peak: It is now Mount Halo, named for a local Indigenous tribal leader from the 1800s. The American landscape is often littered with racist or otherwise offensive place names. They don't just change themselves.
Swastika Mountain, located in a remote part of the Umpqua National Forest outside Eugene, Ore., has officially been renamed Mount Halo after a local indigenous leader.
Mount Halo (previously known as Swastika Mountain) is a summit in Lane County, Oregon, in the United States. It is located within Umpqua National Forest. Lane County, Oregon, U.S.
Federal US officials renamed a Colorado mountain that was previously named after a disgraced governor of the state who led a massacre against Indigenous people. Members of the US Board on Geographic Names voted to change the name of Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky, at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes.
The Blues are uplift mountains and contain some of the oldest rocks in Oregon. Rocks as old as 400 million years protrude through surrounding Columbia River Basalt flows and related volcanics of 16.7 million to about 6 million years ago.
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With the Halo Array destroyed, the Flood were thought finished. Later in the Second War, and even later in the Second Human-Sangheili War, the Flood were encountered on Installations 07 and 03. However, these installations were also destroyed, bringing a final end to the Flood, confirming the race to be extinct.
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The Blue Mountains are said to have been named about 1811 by explorer and fur trader David Thompson of the North West Company, who noted their bluish cast against the sky while descending towards the Columbia River.
Oregon Trail Interpretive Park at Blue Mountain Crossing is where the Oregon Trail passed through the rugged Blue Mountains. Knowing that this was the last mountain range they would cross must have helped emigrants find the strength to climb the Blue Mountains.
Lord Samuel Hood: Mount Hood was named after a British admiral, Lord Samuel Hood, and first described in 1792 by William Broughton, a member of an expedition under command of Captain George Vancouver. Map, "Lewis and Clark Volcano Sitings", Lyn Topinka, USGS/CVO, 2002.
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