Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/507

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was named for a pinto pony that strayed away from his owner and ranged near the mountain.

PIONEER, Lincoln County. Pioneer is a post office near Yaquina River. The post office was for some years known as Morrison, but the name was changed in 1900 because of confusion with Morrison Street in Portland. Barney Morrison was the first postmaster. The name Pioneer was selected because of the operations in that section of the Pioneer Sandstone Company. Barney Morrison continued to act as postmaster at Pioneer after the name was changed.

PIONEER City, Lincoln County. The post office at Pioneer City, which was established July 2, 1868, with George Kellogg first postmaster, was one of the first in what is now Lincoln County. Newport office was established the same day, Newton was established July 12, 1868, and Little Elk, Toledo and Yaquina were established on July 14 of the same year. These six offices took care of the postal needs of that part of Oregon for several years. Pioneer City was appropriately named as far as Pioneer was concerned, though the place never became a city or even a small hamlet. It was about two and one quarter miles up Yaquina River from the place later known as Elk City and about three quarters of a mile downstream from the place later known as Morrison and still later Pioneer. Pioneer City and Pioneer were not in the same place, though they were not more than a mile apart. Pioneer Mountain and Pioneer Summit are west of these old post office locations, and the compiler has been told that the mountain was so named before the Pioneer City post office was established in 1868. Pioneer City post office was closed August 10, 1868, so it was in operation but little more than a month. It was in the southeast quarter of section 2, township 11 south, range 10 west.

PIRTLE, Linn County. Pirtle is a station on the Oregon Electric Railway south of Albany. It was named for Grant Pirtle, at one time proprietor of a hotel in Albany, and owner of land in the vicinity of the station. Pistol River, Curry County. James Mace lost a pistol in this stream in 1853 and it has been known as Pistol River since that time.

PITNER, Tillamook County. Pitner post office in the extreme southeast corner of the county was named in honor of the postmaster, Mrs. Sarah Paul, nee Pitner. The office was established in August, 1901, and was discontinued April 30, 1910. This office was on or very close to what is now the Salmon River Highway at a point two or three miles southwest of the locality now known as Boyer. However, in those days Boyer post office was a mile or so southwest of Pitner, in what is now Lincoln County. PitsuA BUTTE, Deschutes County. This butte, southwest of Bend, is named with the word used by Klamath Indians to describe an eminence about two miles southwest of the old site of Klamath Agency. Its use near Bend is to perpetuate a pleasant Indian name. The compiler has been unable to learn the meaning of the name of the butte near the old Klamath Agency. In 1939 Fred M. White of Portland called attention to the fact that the Piute Indian name for the Columbia five-toed kangaroo rat is wapota pitsua. Inquiries to authorities about the name of the butte on the Klamath Indian Reservation have not been wholly successful. In 1941, Indians professed to know very little