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Mount Swastika in Oregon renamed Mount Halo : NPR


Mount Swastika, located in a remote part of Umpqua National Forest outside Eugene, Ore., has been officially renamed Mount Halo after a local indigenous chieftain.

US Geological Survey


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US Geological Survey


Mount Swastika, located in a remote part of Umpqua National Forest outside Eugene, Ore., has been officially renamed Mount Halo after a local indigenous chieftain.

US Geological Survey

A lesser-known peak in the Umpqua National Forest in western Oregon has been renamed Mount Halo after residents suggested changing the moniker.

United States Commission on Geographical Names Approve the change for Mount Swastika on April 13. New name, Mount Halo, pay respects to Chief Halito of the Yoncalla Kalapuya tribe.

The mountain, which is only about 4,200 feet tall, has made headlines twice in 2022: first at the state and local level when two missing teenagers were rescued there by a Coast Guard helicopter on New Year’s Day; and across the country when Joyce McClain was 81 years old Suggest renaming vertex last summer.

She contacted Oregon Historical Society and it Oregon Geographic Name Table proposed renaming Mount Umpqua, according to McClain’s proposal. She said that when Mount Halo was proposed, she felt it was more appropriate and withdrew her offer.

The old name has nothing to do with the National Socialist German Workers Party, commonly known as the Nazi Party, that ruled during World War II. Kerry Tymchuk, executive secretary at historic society, told NPR last summer that the mountain, as well as the now extinct town of Swastika, were named after a cattle ranch of the same name in the early 1900s, before Adolf Hitler and his party came to power.

The American Holocaust Memorial Museum said the symbol – which the farm used to mark cattle – dates back 7,000 years and means “luck” or “happiness” in Sanskrit. By the turn of the 20th century, however, the marker had become a symbol for German nationalists and Hitler’s Nazi Party.

The mountain’s new name was approved in a 19-3 vote in a vote Oregon Geographic Name Board Meeting in December, according to the minutes of the meetingand was made official by the US Geographical Names Commission in mid-April.

McClain said she knows the mountain’s name has naive origins and that some people don’t like historical renaming, but she feels Swastika is no longer relevant and needs to be changed. Looking back on it all, she’s glad she saw through it all.

“I’m so glad I was able to do this,” McClain told NPR. “One person can really make a difference. People don’t think so, but this proves that one can do it, whoever they are.”

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