What’s in a Name?
Umpqua Lighthouse (circa 1920).
There’s a story behind the name of every locale in Douglas County, and in each issue of UV we give you the background on one of them. This issue we look into the meaning of the ubiquitous Umpqua.
Story by Jim Hays Photo courtesy Douglas County Museum
Umpqua. Few words are more evocative of a specific place or have been attached to more places, people, businesses or institutions native to the region..
It’s where we live. It’s the native people who lived here long ago (and still do). It’s a language. A local community. It’s two (or three) rivers, a national forest, a hot spring. It’s a lighthouse, a college, a bank and a beloved ice cream.
In the distant past, it was the name of three forts and a now-defunct county during Oregon’s days as a U.S. territory, not to mention a city at the mouth of the eponymous river.
According to the indispensable volume Oregon Geographic Names, “Umpqua” was the Native American name of the locality of the Umpqua River and came to be applied by white explorers to both the river and the native people who lived nearby.
Depending on the reference source, the name is translated as “thundering waters,” “across the waters,” or “satisfied,” as in sating one’s hunger. As is the case with many English-language words, “Umpqua” seems to have multiple meanings in native language, based on the context in which the word is used.
The spelling of the name varies in the writings of early explorers, who likely based their spelling of the word as it was spoken to them. David Douglas, who visited the area in 1825, called it “Umptqua.” A year later, the Canadian fur trader Peter Skene Ogden wrote of the “Umqua.” Later writings refer to the “Umpquah,” “Imp-qua” and “Umkwa.
Following are brief takes on various “Umpqua” namesakes:
Umpqua Rivers
The North and South Umpqua rivers combine and drop the directionals at River Forks Park, northwest of Roseburg. From River Forks, the river flows 76 miles to the Pacific. There was once an East Umpqua that was renamed Little River and joins the North Umpqua at Glide.
Umpqua National Forest
Officially created July 1, 1908, when the U.S. Forest Service broke up the extensive Cascades Forest Reserve into four national forests — Mt. Hood, Willamette, Rogue River-Siskiyou and Umpqua.
Umpqua River Light
First completed in 1857 on Winchester Bay at the mouth of the river, the lighthouse collapsed six years later after seasonal floods undermined its foundation. The current lighthouse was finished in 1894 at a site 100 feet above the river and was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.
Umpqua Community College
Opened in 1961 in rented facilities in Roseburg, the college moved to its present location at a bend on the North Umpqua. Classes at the new campus began in fall 1967.
Fort Umpqua
The Hudson’s Bay Co. established two posts by this name, the first (“Old Fort Umpqua”) about 1832 and reportedly on Calapooya Creek. The company built a second fort near Elkton. In 1856, the U.S. military established a Fort Umpqua on the river’s west bank two miles north of its mouth. The post was abandoned in 1862.
Umpqua City
Not to be confused with the hamlet west of Sutherlin where Calapooya Creek enters the Umpqua River, Umpqua City was the original name of what is now Winchester Bay, at the mouth of the Umpqua River. It was established in 1850, and a post office opened a year later.
Umpqua County
Created in 1851 by the Oregon Territorial Legislature in the wake of a gold strike in the Umpqua region that produced a temporary population boom in the area. The county court met at Elkton in 1852, although it later moved to Green Valley and then to Yoncalla. The Legislature carved Douglas County out of the eastern portion of Umpqua County in 1852 and a year later, with the gold rush well over, the new Coos County annexed most of sparsely populated western Umpqua County. What remained was absorbed into Douglas County on Oct. 16, 1862.
