hern Orel by Elija? ates the names used by Major Rogers with the French word for storm, ouragan. William H. Galvani writes of the possible Spanish origin of Oregon in the OHQ, volume XXI, page 332. Joaquin Miller suggested the Spanish oye agua, hear the water, as a source of Oregon in the Oregonian, October 21, 1907, but this seems fanciful to the compiler. Thus the matter rests.
OREGON CAVES, Josephine County. This is the name of a summer post office established to serve visitors to Oregon Caves, Oregon Caves post office was established July 10, 1924. The caves were formerly known as Josephine Caves.
OREGON Caves, Josephine County. For information about the discovery of Oregon Caves, see OHQ, September, 1922, pages 271 and 274. The caves were discovered about 1874 by Elijah J. Davidson, a wellknown pioneer citizen of southern Oregon. The caves were first known as Elijah Caves and later as the Marble Halls and Josephine Caves. President Taft by proclamation dated July 12, 1909, set the caves aside as a national monument with the name Oregon Caves. See OHQ, December, 1909, page 400. For obituary of Elijah Davidson, see the Oregonian, September 11, 1927, section 1, page 21.
OREGON CITY, Clackamas County. Oregon City was laid out and named, in 1842, by Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, who located his land claim there in 1829. A Methodist church was built there in 1843. For narrative of the early settlement, see the Oregonian, January 1, 1895, page 15; description and location of pioneer buildings, ibid., June 16, 1893, page 9; history of Oregon City, ibid., March 11, 1900, page 13; description in 1872, ibid., July 8,1872, page 3. The paper mill at Oregon City was projected in 1889 (Oregonian, October 11, 1889). The first name of the locality was Willamette, or Willamette Falls. It is referred to by that name in correspondence of the Methodist mission, established there in 1840 on the arrival of the "great reinforcement" in the Lausanne. After 1840 the place grew as a political and trade center. According to Mrs. Mary Waller Hall, daughter of the Reverend Alvin F. Waller, who was one of the missionary party which came to Oregon on the Lausanne and settled at Oregon City in June, 1840, the first apple tree in that place grew in the lot where the Methodist church was first built, from seed that her mother threw outdoors after she had been preparing dried apples for cooking. Oregon City post office was established March 29, 1847, with David Hill first postmaster.
OREGON COAST Highway, Clatsop, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Lane, Lincoln and Tillamook counties. A short sketch of early highway projects along the Oregon coast, by Leslie M. Scott, appears in OHQ, volume XXXIII, page 268. On June 3, 1919, partly as a result of feeling aroused by World War I, a measure was passed at a special election approving a bond issue of $2,500,000 to be used in cooperation with the federal government to build the Roosevelt Coast Military Highway. The name was in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. Later it became apparent that this name was not strictly suitable. In the fall of 1928 the compiler of these notes suggested to Robert W. Sawyer, then state highway commissioner, that the name Oregon Coast Highway be adopted. This change was made by the legislature in 1931.
OREGON TRAIL. Nearly a hundred years ago Francis Parkman coined
