and thoads was point pior postmaster. According to the Portland city directory of 1902 the post office was at the southeast corner of Claremont Avenue and the East Ankeny street carline. Due to the change of Portland street names the location of this post office should now be described at the southeast corner of Northeast Glisan Street and Northeast 53rd Avenue. This falls within the limits of Center Addition, a tract that was platted in 1890. A question arises as to why the name of the post office Central differed from the name of the addition Center. This discrepancy was doubtless caused by the fact that there was then a post office in Washington County called Centerville and postal authorities did not wish to run the risk of confusion. Also there was a community in Clackamas County called Center. This old Central post office had of course no connection with a later Portland office called Central station.
CENTRAL Point, Jackson County. This community received its name because two important pioneer wagon roads of the Rogue River Valley crossed at this point which was near the center of the valley. One of these roads was the north and south road from the Willamette Valley and the other was the road leading from Jacksonville, which was then the center of settlement, northeast to Table Rock, Sams Valley and other localities. Central Point was named by Isaac Constant who was a pioneer of 1852 and who lived near the crossroads. Magruder Brothers established a store at this point about 1870 and a post office was soon given the name of Central Point. The town is on the Siskiyou line of the Southern Pacific Company and on the Pacific Highway and has an elevation of 1272 feet.
CERRO GORDO, Lane County. Cerro Gordo is a point on the north side of Row River about five miles east of Cottage Grove. The words are Spanish and mean a rich hill in a mining district, otherwise a fat or round hill. Gordo also means obese. In 1945 John C. Veatch of the Portland bar told the writer that a number of veterans of the Mexican War settled in the vicinity of this butte and presumably displayed their knowledge of Spanish by naming the mountain. There is a notion that this hill resembles the one in Mexico where the battle of Cerro Gordo was fought but Mr. Veatch thinks this improbable and that the real reason for the name was that the slopes are of a golden brown in late summer, giving the appearance of a gold or rich mountain. Mr. Veatch is well acquainted with the locality because he was born there.
CHADWELL, Clatsop County. Chadwell is a locality on Lewis and Clark River about four miles south of Miles Crossing and south of Astoria. It bears the name of a place in England. Mr. and Mrs. William True were early settlers in the Lewis and Clark Valley. They came from Chadwell, England, and when the local post office was established February 20, 1882, True was the first postmaster and he named the place for his former home. The Clatsop County office was closed July 27, 1898, with papers to Melville. See information in the Astoria Column in the Astorian-Budget, June 7, 14, 20 and 26, 1946.
CHAMPAGNE CREEK, Douglas County. This stream flows into Umpqua River from the south a few miles northwest of Roseburg. It is in a locality known as the French Settlement because it was here that a number of French-Canadians established a sort of colony in the '50s. One of these settlers was Joseph Champagne and the creek bears his name. For data about the French Settlement, see Walling's History of Southern Oregon, page 428.
