Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/475

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with the Highwayunty. O'Brien sides of this place there was dry, arid bunchgrass land." It seems apparent that Oasis post office was well named.

OATFIELD ROAD, Clackamas County. This road extends southeast from Milwaukie. It bears the name of a well-known pioneer family of the vicinity. For additional information, see obituary of Mrs. Minerva Thessing Oatheld, Oregon Journal, April 9, 1943. O'BRIEN, Josephine County. O'Brien is a community and post office on the Redwood Highway about ten miles south of Kerby, at the junction with the old stage road to the southwest up West Fork Illinois River. The place bears the name of John O'Brien, one of the first settlers of the locality. The spelling O'Bryan is wrong

OBSIDIAN CLIFF, Lane County. Dr. E. T. Hodge, in his Mount Multnomah, page 103, et seq., describes Obsidian Cliff quite fully. Obsidian is a black volcanic glass composed of acid lava which cooled so rapidly that it did not have time to crystallize. Obsidian Cliff is a prominent point west of the Three Sisters. See under Glass BUTTES.

OCEANSIDE, Tillamook County. Nothing could be simpler than this.

OCEOLA, Washington County. Oceola was a post office of pioneer days, established June 24, 1854, with Laurence Hall postmaster. Preston's Map of Oregon, 1856, shows the place near the present site of Beaverton, but spelled Oseola. It passed from the picture many years ago. There are many places in the United States named for the Seminole Indian chief, and the spelling generally used is Osceola.

OCHOCO CREEK, Crook and Wheeler counties. Ochoco Creek and other geographic features in central Oregon are said to have been named for Ochoco or Ocheco, a Snake or Piute chief, and a contemporary of Paulina and Howlock. However, this is disputed by old-timers in Crook County, who say the chief was named for the stream because he lived nearby. It is also said that the word ochoco was a local Indian word for willows and the stream was named on that account. The compiler knows no way to compose these differences in legend.

ODELL, Hood River County. This is a well-known community in the middle Hood River Valley. It was named for William Odell, who settled nearby as early as 1861, and whose son, Milton D. Odell, was the first white child born in the valley. Roswell Shelley started a store at Odell and applied the present name. William Odell was a native of Tennessee. Milton Odell was born in 1863. A news item in the Hood River Glacier, October 14, 1932, cites Mrs. Troy Shelley as authority for the statement that the name of the town was originally suggested by S. F. Blythe, the pioneer editor of the Glacier, Post office records show that when the post office was established in June, 1910, it was first called Newtown. The name was changed to Odell in March, 1911. The name Newtown did not refer to Hood River's famous apple, but to the new settlement that sprang up at the railroad station about three-quarters of a mile southeast of the old Crossroads.

ODELL CREEK, Klamath County. Odell Creek is the name applied to the outlet of Odell Lake. The stream flows into Davis Lake. For many years there was considerable confusion about the names of the streams in the upper Deschutes River drainage basin. A committee of Forest Service officials codified the names, and the term Odell Creek was chosen to indicate the stream described above. It has come into universal use.

ODELL LAKE, Klamath County. William Holman Odell was born in