coves just west of the bay at Port Orford and just southwest of the town of Port Orford. Nellies Point is the promontory on the east of Nellies Cove. These features were named for Sarah Ellen Tichenor, youngest daughter of Captain William Tichenor, the famous pioneer of the locality. She was known as Nellie and the cove and point were her favorite spots on the old Tichenor property. The cove to the east of Nellies Cove is Tichenor Cove. Sarah Ellen Tichenor was born in Illinois in 1848. She was brought to Port Orford probably in May, 1852, and spent her girl. hood there. Later she married E. W. McGraw and lived in San Francisco. In early days the town of Gold Beach in Curry County was called Ellensburg, in compliment to Ellen Tichenor.
NELSCOTT, Lincoln County. This has become an important summer resort on Oregon Coast Highway. A letter by Mrs. Alma Anderson, published in North Lincoln Coast Guard for May 4, 1939, indicates that the name was formed by combining parts of the names of Charles P. Nelson and Dr. W. R. Scott, who opened the townsite in April, 1926. Nelson died in December, 1946. For editorial comment about his activities, see Sunday Oregonian, December 25, 1946.
NENA CREEK, Wasco County. Nena Creek rises in Mutton Mountains in the northeast corner of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. It flows into Deschutes River. Indians inform the writer that the word means tall white cottonwood trees that grow near the stream. The style Nee-nee was used in the Pacific Railroad Surveys Reports in 1855. The form Nena Creek does not reflect the real Indian pronunciation, but it appears on government maps and is the name of a railroad station, and seems to be here to stay.
NENAMUSA, Tillamook County. Nenamusa Falls are on the east border of the county in the west part of township 4 south, range 17 west, in the Nestucca River drainage. Nenamusa post office was established nearby January 16, 1912, with Peter N. Forsyth first and only postmaster. The office was closed August 31, 1917. It was about eight miles east of Blaine. Information about the origin of the name of the falls is unsatisfactory. The word is said to be Indian, meaning sweetheart, or love, but the writer has not been able to trace any such word or meaning in available Indian dictionaries. It is reported that the word may have been brought to Oregon from an eastern state. Indians known by the writer had no knowledge of the sentiment of love as known to white people, or of the word sweetheart, either. The prefix ne in the northwest Oregon area was used by Indians as a locative, and may be translated, roughly, as a place. The nearest approach to Nenamusa offered by the Chinook jargon is the expresion ne moosum, which may be translated as place to sleep. It might refer to a place for a temporary camp. It has been suggested that Nenamusa means a place for a honeymoon, but all this is conjectural.
NEOTSU, Lincoln County. Neotsu is a post office on the Oregon Coast Highway near the north end of Devils Lake, and the name is said to be an Indian word referring to the lake. The compiler has been unable to get a satisfactory translation. There are a number of Indian legends about Devils Lake, some of which are doubtless apocryphal. Apparently it was a place where evil skookums flourished. Davidson, in the Coast Pilot, 1889, uses the spelling Na-ah-so, but does not explain the word. The compiler has heard Devils Lake referred to as a me-sah'-chie chuck, which is Chinook jargon for evil water.
