Swastika Mountain needed a new name. Here’s how it got one.
It wasn’t a nod to the Nazis, but that didn’t make the Oregon peak any less controversial. This is how—and why—wild places get renamed in the U.S.
For a long time, nobody really noticed Swastika Mountain in Oregon.
The 4,197-foot peak doesn’t usually get a lot of attention. Sure, it had an unusual and even alarming name, one that seemingly referenced the worst horrors of the 20th century. But it is located deep in the Umpqua National Forest, a bit off the beaten path.
“It wasn't a huge, majestic mountain that you could see from miles away,” says Kerry Tymchuk, executive director of the Oregon Historical Society.
So it stood in relative anonymity for the better part of a century. Then Joyce McClain found out about it. In April, the Oregon resident convinced the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (USBGN) to rebrand the peak:
