Oregon has renamed two more geographic locations that previously bore racist slurs.
On Sept. 18, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names christened Jack Creek in Tillamook County and Triple Nickles Creek in Douglas County.
The new names replace ones that included an antiquated term now often considered offensive to Black people. Before that, the names included racist slurs. The renaming effort was led by the Oregon Geographic Names Board, the U.S. Forest Service and the nonprofit Oregon Black Pioneers.
The new Jack Creek is named after a Black man known only as “Jack” who lived alone in a remote cabin in the Tillamook County forest in the 1890s. His full identity remains unknown.
Triple Nickles Creek honors the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, an all-Black U.S. Army unit from World War II. Known as the Triple Nickles, the battalion of smokejumpers fought Oregon wildfires sparked by Japanese balloon bombs.
Zachary Stocks, executive director of Oregon Black Pioneers, praised the renaming efforts.
“Removing antiquated racial terms allows us to right past wrongs and honor historic Black men and women in the process,” Stocks said in a press release announcing the change.
Bruce Fisher from the Oregon Geographic Names Board acknowledged the extra work that went into these changes.
“This was an effort that took years to achieve,” Fisher said. “We removed two offensive place names and replaced them with names that enrich Oregon’s Black history.”
This marks the latest in a series of renaming efforts by Oregon Black Pioneers and others. In 2020, groups successfully renamed a Jackson County peak Ben Johnson Mountain, after the early Black settler.
In 2022, groups named a Douglas County ridge after Malvin Brown, a member of the Triple Nickles.
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