CALIFORNIA, USA — Today's Why Guy question comes from Bean: "Why do so many of our local towns have odd names?"
Yes, there are many odd names, Like Placerville which isn't in Placer County. It's in El Dorado County. It's just down Highway 49 from Nashville, which you might zip by without even noticing.
Nashville, of course, was named for all the Tennessee gold rush immigrants who came here in and around 1849.
Of note is the town of Cool, which sits at about 1,500 feet of elevation in El Dorado County which makes it a "cooler" location, but the weather had nothing to do with the naming. The town was named for Peter Y. Cool, a preacher from New York who came to pan for gold in 1850.
The city of Weed in Siskiyou County might have plenty of farmland to grow almost anything, but it's not named for that kind of weed. Abner Weed was a Civil War soldier and later a developer who founded the city, whose slogan is "Weed like to see you."
Auburn, California? Not an original name. It was named for the many settlers from Auburn, New York who came to mine for gold in 1849-1850.
Atlanta is a small unincorporated settlement near Manteca. It shows up on a map, but there isn't much more to it than that.
And Angels Camp is a beautiful town in Calaveras County rich in Gold Rush history. Once the home of Mark Twain, one quirky thing about Angels Camp is that it was founded by Henry Angell of Rhode Island. Angell obviously has two L's in it, but along the way, it seems the last L disappeared. It was officially shortened to “Angels Camp” in 1812.
Go figure. More to come on the odd names of cities and towns in our region in future Why Guy stories.
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