Wallowa Mountains and has an elevation of 8638 feet as shown on the
USGS map of the Telocaset quadrangle. While the compiler has no written record of when it received its name, it is obvious from its picture that it bears a close similarity to the hats worn by Chinese laborers throughout the Pacific Northwest in the early days of development, and it must have been named on that account.
CHINA CREEK, Wallowa County. This is a small stream flowing into Snake River from China Gulch in township 4 north, range 49 east. In the days of placer mining in the Pacific Northwest and particularly near Lewiston there were a great many Chinese panning for gold, and there are China bars, China creeks and China flats in many parts of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. It was at these points that large colonies of Chinese carried on their mining operations. China Hat, Deschutes County. China Hat is a butte east of Paulina Mountains. It received its name because, when viewed from Fort Rock, it resembled the style of hat worn by Chinese during early days of the Pacific Northwest.
CHINCHALO, Klamath County. This is a station on the Cascade line of the Southern Pacific Company. It bears the name of a Klamath Indian chief and medicine man. According to Will G. Steel his domain was in the Klamath Marsh country. He was a signer of the treaty of 1864 as Makosas.
CHINIDERE MOUNTAIN, Hood River County. This mountain is just west of Wahtum Lake and has an elevation of 4674 feet. H. D. Langille, pioneer resident of Hood River Valley and an authority on the Mt. Hood region, said that Chinidere was the last reigning chief of the Wasco Indians, and that this mountain was named for him.
CHINOOK BEND, Lincoln County, Chinook Bend is about three miles upstream from Kernville, at a point where the Siletz River makes a pronounced bend first south, then north. The geography of the locality is shown on the Geological Survey map of the Euchre Mountain quadrangle. In November, 1945, Andrew L. Porter of Newport wrote the compiler as follows: "Chinook Bend was so named because the early run of Chinook salmon would lie there and wait for the rain to make fresh water before going up to the spawning ground. It was a good place to troll for salmon."
CHINQUAPIN MOUNTAIN, Jackson County. There are a number of geographic features in Oregon named for the western chinquapin, Castanopsis chrysophylla, of these Chinquapin Mountain, in the southeast part of Jackson County, is probably the best known. The western chinquapin is sometimes called the golden leaved chestnut. In the lower mountain altitudes it grows into a handsome tree, 75 feet high in some places. On the high mountains it is generally a shrub. It is found generally on the slopes of the southern Cascade Range and the Sierra Nevada.
CHITWOOD, Lincoln County. This is a station on the line of the Southern Pacific Company between Corvallis and Toledo. George T. Smith, postmaster at Chitwood, wrote in 1925 that the station and post office were named for Joshua Chitwood, who lived near the present site of the community when the railroad was built down the Yaquina River. This railroad was built between 1881 and 1885. For particulars of this construction see Scott's History of the Oregon Country, volume IV, page 334.
