This point and the valley just to the east were named by Captain Oliver C. Applegate for a Doctor Munson, physician at Klamath Indian Agency, who died from over-exertion while climbing near the point in 1871. See article in Klamath Record, March 22, 1918.
MURDER CREEK, Linn County. This stream is just northeast of Albany. It owes its name to the fact that on February 8, 1862, Andrew J. Pate killed George Lamb near its banks, and Pate was hanged at Albany on May 17, 1862. Pate was the first man to be hanged in Linn County. Additional details about this murder are contained in a very rare pamphlet in the files of the Oregon Historical Society, which gives Pate's confession. The stream has been called Fisher Creek and also Powell Creek for nearby settlers, but Murder Creek seems well established and is used on government maps.
MURDERERS CREEK, Grant County. Colonel William Thompson, in Reminiscences of a Pioneer, page 62, says this stream was named in the '60s because Indians killed a party of eight prospectors who were exploring its banks. For additional information about the naming of this stream see news article by Martha Stewart in Canyon City Blue Mountain Eagle, October 21, 1927.
MURPHY, Josephine County. B. O. R. Murphy settled on Applegate River May 7, 1854, and took up a donation land claim. The stream running through the claim became known as Murphy Creek. On January 7, 1875, Jacob 0. C. Wimer had a post office established called Murphy in honor of the early settler.
MURPHY Bar, Polk County. Murphy Bar is on the south bank of the Willamette River about three miles southeast of Independence. It was named for William Murphy who lived nearby many years ago.
MURPHY CREEK, Wallowa County. This creek was named for one Murphy, a pioneer trapper and hunter, who built a cabin on the creek. In 1926 part of this cabin was still standing. The stream flows into Minam River.
MUTTON MOUNTAINS, Wasco County. These mountains are in the northeast part of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation and have an extreme elevation of about 4500 feet. The eastern slopes are excessively steep down to the Deschutes River, and the group is so cut off from the routes of travel that it is little visited. Pierce Mays, a well-known resident of Wasco County, said that the Mutton Mountains were named for the large number of mountain sheep that formerly lived thereon. That eastern Oregon had at one time plenty of mountain sheep is attested by J. E. Snow, whose statement to that effect appears on the editorial page of the Oregonian for December 10, 1925. The use of the name Mutton Mountains began before 1855. There is a good deal of information about the mountain sheep in Vernon Bailey's Mammals and Life Zones of Oregon, beginning on page 63. The principal variety in Oregon is known as the rimrock or lava bed sheep, credited to David Douglas as of 1829, but mentioned by Ogden as early as 1825.
MUTTONCHOP BUTTE, Klamath County. Muttonchop Butte, elevation 5489 feet, is about ten miles north of Chemult and west of the Southern Pacific Cascade line. The first explanation of the name that the compiler can find is that when the area was mapped by the Forest Service about 1930, the contour lines of this butte made a very fair representation of a mutton chop. This may be seen by inspecting the USGS butte. I the land d for ne of ' eat 10Kn 1972 ofteil
