Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/461

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OREGON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES
395

way and Navigation Company decided to name the railroad station after their daughters, the name of the one being Clara, and that of the other being Jennie. They combined syllables of the two names to make Clarnie. This station is five miles west of Fairview.

Clarno, Wheeler County. This post office is on the John Day River near Clarno Bridge, and in October, 1925, happens to be in Wheeler County. Clarno was named for one of the earliest white settlers on the John Day River, Andrew Clarno. Just below the post office is the site of the proposed Clarno Dam for impounding irrigation water. For information about this dam see the co-operative report on the John Day Project issued by the state engineer and by the U. S. Reclamation Service in 1916. The Clarno post office is generally located not far from the bridge, depending upon who can be prevailed upon to take the postmastership. Sometimes it is in Wasco County, sometimes in Wheeler. Clarno has an elevation of 1304 feet. Clarno post office was established September 15, 1894, with Nannie Chichester postmaster. It was then in Gilliam County, as Wheeler County had not yet been formed.

When Andrew Clarno settled on John Day River, he had no neighbors. Stockmen in those days did not feel the need of any. When he heard that a friend had settled on a homestead about 20'miles to the east, near the present site of Fossil, he rode over on horseback, and said: "Bill, don't you think you're crowding me a little?"

Clatskanie, Columbia County. Silas B. Smith, Clatsop County pioneer, is quoted in the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, volume I, page 322, to the effect that Tlats-kani was a point in the Nehalem Valley reached by the Indians from the Columbia River either by way of what we now know as Youngs River, or by way of Clatskanie River. The Indians used the word Tlatskani by applying it to certain streams indicating the route they