Coos Bay, Coos County. As the result of votes at two city elections held November 7 and December 28, 1944, the name of the community Marshfield was changed to Coos Bay, thus doing away with a geographic title that had been in use for ninety years. For the history of the name Marshfield, see under that heading. The new name was of course taken from the natural feature, Coos Bay. For comments on the origin of the name Coos, see under Coos COUNTY. Coos City, Coos County. Coos City was one of the early post offices of Coos County and it was named for the county or the bay. It was established June 25, 1873, with Henry A. Coston first postmaster. The office continued in service until March 18, 1884. It was situated on Isthmus Slough about five miles south of Marshfield as it was then known. There is little left of the community, but the name is retained by the Coos City bridge. An important road turned eastward at this point and made its way to Roseburg. Coos County. Coos County was created December 22, 1853, by the territorial legislature. It was originally formed from the west parts of Umpqua and Jackson counties. Coos is an Indian name of a native tribe whose habitat was the vicinity of Coos Bay. The name is first mentioned by Lewis and Clark, who spell it Cook-koo-oose (Thwaites' Original Journals, volume VI, page 117). The explorers heard the name among the Clatsop Indians. Alexander R. McLeod in his journal of 1828 gives the name Cahoose; Slacum, in his report of 1837, gives the name of Coos River Cowis; Wilkes, in Western America, spells it Cowes. The spelling has been variously Koo'as, Kowes, Koos, Coose, and finally Coos. For description of Coos Bay, see the Oregonian, June 11, 1873, article signed "Northwest." For description of the Oregon coast south of Coos Bay, by the same writer, ibid., July 9, 1873. One Indian meaning of Coos is "lake," another, "place of pines" ibid., August 26, 1902, page 12. Perry B. Marple, who began exploiting Coos Bay in 1853, spelled the word Coose, and said it was an Indian perversion of the English word coast, meaning a place where ships can land. See his advertisement, ibid., January 7, 1854. Another version is that the Indian word was made to resemble the name of a county in New Hampshire (ibid., December 9, 1890, page 6). The Coos Indians were of the Kusan family, formerly living at Coos Bay. Lewis and Clark estimated their population at 1500 in 1805. The name is often used as synonymous with the family name. Hale, in U. S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology, 1846, page 221, gives the name as Kwokwoos and Kaus; Parrish, in Indian Affairs Report for 1854, page 495, gives Co-ose. Interesting details of the early history of southwestern Oregon may be found in Orvil Dodge's Pioneer History of Coos and Curry Counties, published in Salem in 1898. Coos County has a land area of 1611 square miles. In 1844 Duflot de Mofras got off the prize pun in the history of Oregon geographic names when he published his work Exploration du Territoire de l'Oregon. He called Coos River la riviere aux Vaches, or Cows River, apparently after talking to some of the Scots employed by the Hudson's Bay Company. Coos HEAD, Coos County. Coos Head is the point on the south side of the entrance to Coos Bay. It extends northward from Cape Arago, but is much lower than the main part of the cape. Between Coos Head and the west point of Cape Arago is the Cape Arago Lighthouse, a well-known landmark. The locality of this lighthouse is sometimes called
