Page:Oregon Geographic Names, third edition.djvu/565

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point a couple of miles west of the present site of Wyeth. The post office was apparently reestablished to serve people connected with the Cates mill. It was about three miles west of Shellrock Mountain, but named for that feature nevertheless.

SHELLROCK, CREEK, Clackamas County. Shellrock Creek, which takes its rise in Shellrock Lake, is in the east part of the county. It flows into Oak Grove Fork Clackamas River. The lake and stream were so named because they were near Shellrock Mountain, which had shale slides on its slopes. Several years ago the name of this mountain was changed by the government to Frazier Mountain because there were too many other Shellrock mountains in the state, but the name of the lake and creek remained as before because there was no duplication.

SHELLROCK MOUNTAIN, Hood River County, Mountains of this name are so called because the rock of which they are composed breaks off in platy chunks and piles up in long slopes, like shelled corn. There are several Shellrock mountains in Oregon, the best known being on the Columbia River Highway east of Cascade Locks.

SHEPPERDS DELL, Multnomah County. This dell on the Columbia River Highway just west of Bridal Veil was presented to the public in May, 1915, by George Shepperd, as a memorial to his wife. The tract consists of eleven acres. The creek is spanned by a fine concrete arch about 100 feet long.

SHERARS BRIDGE, Wasco County. Peter Skene Ogden took an exploring party into central Oregon in 1826-27, and on Thursday, September 22, 1826, he noted in his journal that his party reached the River of the Falls [Deschutes] at the "Falls where we found an Indian camp of 20 families. Finding a canoe, also a bridge made of slender wood, we began crossing, 5 horses were lost thro' the bridge." See OHQ, volume XI, page 205. Apparently in pioneer times there was no bridge at the present site of Sherars Bridge, for Bancroft, in his History of Oregon, volume I, page 787, says that it had to be forded or crossed in Indian canoes. John Y. Todd built a bridge in 1860, but it was carried away and had to be rebuilt in 1862. For Todd's reminiscences, see OHQ, volume

XXX, page 70. Todd later took in Ezra L. Hemingway and Robert Mays as partners. Hemingway bought out the other two, and then sold to O'Brien, who sold out to Joseph Sherar in 1871. Sherar was a prominent character in central Oregon. He was born in Vermont on November 16, 1833, of Irish parentage, and was reared in St. Lawrence County, New York. He came by sea to California in 1855. He mined in northern California, and in 1862 he started with passengers and freight by pack train to the John Day mines, and on this trip his party named Antelope Valley, Muddy Creek, Cherry Creek and Burnt Ranch, and laid the foundation for Bakeoven. Sherar married Jane A. Herbert in 1863 and settled in Wasco County. He paid $7040 for Sherars Bridge and spent $75,000 improving roads leading to it. He was interested in various milling enterprises on White River and kept a stage station at the bridge which bears his name. He died at The Dalles on February 11, 1908. Apparently there was a post office at this locality as early as 1868 with the name Deschutes. See under that heading

SHERIDAN, Yamhill County. Sheridan is on the South Yamhill River and was named for Philip Henry Sheridan, who as lieutenant, did efficient and courageous work against the Indians at the Cascades in