Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-12-19

Jl\N means of identification. their other use
- that or rerpetuatins the incidents ant
adventures as the countrys cradle-dags-"iii
never cease to command absorbing interest:
of the good ship Columbia which sailed IN tii't
river from the Pacific and left trace Of her Visit
IA the name of the great waterway whose ufahi-
age area marks Great Basins northereh eose'
we shall always want to know
And OF how Hat island out in the lake came Nv
its name: and why the Wasatch carries its title
and whence the origin of Great Salt Lake, are
questions of interest 10 those who. dwelling near
them are intimate in their mountaineering
No western state can boast of 50 great uiNei-.
sity of name sources as can Titan.
If Idaho in the name of Boise feels an echo from
the old days of British occupation, when the mast
rrs OF the fur trading business TOOK OUT OF west
ern America wealth destined to display ltselt
in the ostentations of the BRUSH court ulih
can match this influence III the name of our
Bear River and our Ogden canyon and river and
city.
Is Oregon proud Of her American explorers VINO
left her Astoria? Utah has names TO recall their
brother, Captain Ashley, who left us Ashley val
ley and Ashley fork Of the Green river, and car
ried on the story of their discoveries toward tho
Spanish frontier as they carried them toward the
British.
VIII Washington boast of her good old siwasn
Chief Seattle? Utah had her rntc. and Uintah.
10 the days of the government explorers and
their military escorts Colorado claims u lineage
OF direct descent in Pixies Peak, but here too
Utah has the same fellowship in our Fremont and
Stansbury islands Would California cling to her
padres and the memory of the Santa Fe cara
vans2 We to- had our Father Escalante, and the
"old Spanish trail to Monterey led through
southern Utah and its travellers gave the names
that many OF the streams along its route still
carry.
To tell whence than few of our
geographical names is impossible in this article;
partly because as yet little of the data has been
e in
hope that more information will follow along tho
trail now breaking. Many pioneer sat in at,
the incidents resulting in the of many Of
towns and valleys and rivers and mo-
and the narratives OF all such would enrich the
writings of such story as this at future date
Whatever our fellowship with the explorers and
trappers, the British and Spaniards, most of our
Utah names date back to the great movement
OF settlement and soil conquest which honor the
of pioneers, and beautiful achieve
ments with success
An interesting thing to trace is the vcissi-
tudes through which many Of our important titles
passed before finally reaching the state in which
they now known.
UTAH LAKE.
Take Utah lake. for instance. The diary Of Faith
Escalante, which is in the Museum OF
the City Of Mexico, and transcript of which is
soon to come permanently into the possession of
Utah historian, shows him as seeking the 'land
of the Timpanogos,'' where he has been told he II
will find Indian pueblos similar to those OF the I
zunis and Moquis. We find him after leaving
Santa Fe, July 20, 1875, finally striking the head
waters OF the Provo and working down it to the
valley. whose expanse of water he formally
ichristened the lake of "Nuestra Sonora de la Her
ced de los Tmpanogos"
10 the student of old English manuscripts dat
ing back to Chaucer's day and Whereabouts it is
nothing surprising when single word finds half
a dozen spellings in q single page of manuscript.
Therefore the Spanish scribe of Father Escalan-
tes visit is to be fully forgiven for treating
to dozen or more spengs of the word we now
love to honor in the most beautiful OF all our
Wasatch mountain peaks 1t is well known that
Artist Hafen, whose delight above all other de-
lights is to picture this mountain in its varying
moods. objects to the spelling of the name or
dnarilv given, and indeed this is Timpanogas. in
stead OF the older most common form. Es-
caantefs spellings are besides Tmpanogos,"
"Tnpangotzs," "Timpanoutzis.'' 'Tmpanoss,"
and "Timpanois.''
Then there drifts into American lore stories
about tile wonderful Timpanogos lake of the
west mingled with the peculiar data about the
Great Salt Lake. The result is that map print-
ed in 1s26, reproduced by, Bancroft. places Tim
pinogos lakes north of Lake aalado," and much
bigger than it, the apparent confusion being
that OF trying to make descriptions of the Great
Salt Lake fit the EscaIante descriptions of Lake
1Impanogos, which had found their way east
over the old Santa Fe trading trail.
Until 1873, Lake Ttmpanogos seemed TO thrive
unmoested in whatever descriptions of the west
We're written. Then came Ashley from his i'll
fated Green river trapping and exploring
petition, to build his trading post on the lake
shore for which, in 1897, wheeled cannon was
brought overland from st. Louis,
With Ashley came whole series of
names, often replacing names already given by
the spaniards. One of these was Lake Ashley
Cor Lake Timpanogos Lake Ashley thrved in its
turn,---it always written as being at the
mouth of the Tnpanogos river,-which became
of most famous western streams,-and
with 1t came the name of Ute Outlet" for Jordan
river, name Which the pioneers used before
lecting that Of Jordan river for the stream.
Then came Fremont and with him tho name
Of Utah lake. Fremont, always careless of the
rights of previous explorers had already lifted
the OF Ogden river from the Humboldt, and
re-chrisened it With its present title. So when
he the trail from southern Calfor-
mia. in May, 1S4i and camped the cath OF
the month the shores of Lake Timpanogos,
he knew tho christening formerly given it
by its Spanish discoverer, and knew not also his
American Predecessor OF score OF years
before Therefore writing in his journal of the
lake he put it thus
Early the next day we in sight of the
lake of the Utahs and descended the broad