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Two Oregon locations whose names were considered offensive to Black people have been renamed by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
Names with Racial Slurs Removed in Douglas and Tillamook Counties
Negro Creek in Douglas County became Triple Nickles Creek. Triple Nickles Creek honors the all-Black U.S. Army 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion of smokejumpers from World War II. The battalion, known as the Triple Nickles, fought Oregon wildfires sparked by Japanese balloon bombs.
Negro Jack Creek in Tillamook County became Jack Creek. Jack Creek is named after a Black man, known only as Jack, who lived a solitary life in a remote cabin in the Tillamook County Forest in the 1890s.
The New Names Right Past Wrongs
The executive director of the nonprofit Oregon Black Pioneers, Zachary Stocks, praised the renaming decisions, saying the removal of antiquated racial terms helped right past wrongs and honored historic Black men and women.
Bruce Fisher of the Oregon Geographic Names Board said the new names ‘was an effort that took years to achieve.’ Fisher said two offensive place names were replaced with names that enriched Oregon’s Black history.
The new names replace ones considered a racial slur and offensive to Black people. The renaming was a combined effort of the Oregon Geographic Names Board, assisted by the U.S. Forest Service and Bruce Fisher.
Triple Nickles Creek and Jack Creek are the latest in a series of renaming campaigns by the Oregon Black Pioneers that, together with other organizations, in 2020 renamed a Jackson County peak as the Ben Johnson Mountain after an early Black settler.
Two years later, the groups renamed a Douglas County ridge after Malvin Brown, a Triple Nickles smokejumper.
Hopefully, they will rename the Cracker Barrel too!
This was confusing on whether these were the new names or the offensive old names. I looked it up in another article and it said the changes were, “ Negro Jack Creek in Tillamook County to Jack Creek, and the name of Negro Creek in Douglas County to Triple Nickles Creek.”
That makes a lot more sense.
OMG history is history stop taking offense over nothing, get real
Makes sense someone named Karen would make a comment like that.
AGREE. it’s History good or Bad.
Please pardon my asking, I am not trying to be offensive, but I don’t think this article told enough facts or reasons why thise names are offensive. ” Jack” creek sounds cool and for them to name it after someone who is African Amerucan, seems pretty cool to me, so maybe I am missing something ?? Is there a slang associated with it ? I don’t know ? And I do not understand the ” Nickles”, one at all ? What do these things mean? I am not up to date on slangs, if they are. Although, I do like the people involved in the “nickles”, thing being named individually and honored, because then, you can look up the names if you don’t know and get some cool history knowledge.
This is the most stupid thing i’ve ever heard of. If you don’t know triple nickels means you’re black, then no one knows & they should have explained it to everyone.
how in the world does that mean black? I was guessing there were 15 men in the firebrigade :/