How Cerro Gordo Mountain was Named

Our Forgotten War with Mexico

The Battle of Cerro Gordo, 4/18/1847

 By Stephen Williamson, (c) 2015

Cerro Gordo Mountain is located six miles east of Cottage Grove, Oregon.  It overlooks Dorena Lake.  Anyone in downtown Cottage Grove can see Cerro Gordo Mountain standing in the distance down Main Street. The words “Cerro Gordo” are Spanish and mean a large or rich hill.

You might wonder why a mountain in Oregon would have a Spanish name (the name of “Cerro Gordo” is found in at least six states.) How a place gets its name is often fascinating and sometimes controversial. There are at least three different origins for the name of the mountain called Cerro Gordo in Lane County, Oregon.

In 1919, the Cottage Grove Sentinel ran a series called Footprints of Old Pioneer Days. This series retold early tales of the area while they were still within the people’s living memories and could be corrected in follow-up columns. The entire series contains invaluable historical tidbits of South Lane County told by people who had lived them.

Here is a Cottage Grove Sentinel newspaper article from September 19, 1919. It says that our Cerro Gordo was named for a major battle in our war with Mexico. Pictures of both mountains show a striking resemblance (see below). Local Kalapuya Indians are also said to have called the mountain “Cheomecshun,” meaning “large” because it was “the largest mountain in this immediate section.”

The 09/19/19 newspaper article goes on to say, “According to Dr. Oglesby this mountain was given its present name by Terrence and Nancy McMurray, a pioneer settler in that section who fought in the Mexican War and also named the valley east Buena Vista, the names being after those of a mountain and valley in Mexico.”

Dr. William Oglesby is a pioneer legend in Central Oregon history. Any Google search will turn up stories of his medical career, military action during the Indian Wars, gold mining and newspaper writing. He was an early discoverer of gold in the Bohemia Mining district. Oglesby came to Oregon in 1853. Dr. Oglesby’s father was in charge of the wagon train which also brought Sarah Churchill Knox. She traveled from Iowa, where in 1851 Cerro Gordo County was already established to honor veterans of the battle. (pages 224 & 225 of Cottage Grove, Golden was the Past, Vol 1)

Here is a link to Oglesby’s biography in Portrait and Biographical Record of the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Oglesby, arrived in the Cottage Grove area in 1853. Dr. Oglesby died in Lane County in 1920. He wrote many articles for the Cottage Grove area newspapers and was widely respected for his knowledge of local history. When the article was written there was still a Cerro Gordo train stop on the OP&E Railroad near today’s site of Dorena Lake.

Cerro Gordo and Buena Vista were the names of the US’s two biggest victories in our 1847 war with Mexico. They were the largest battles our nation had ever fought until that time.  Below are pictures and web sites about Buena Vista and Cerro Gordo.  Buena Vista is in northern Mexico and Cerro Gordo is on Mexico’s east coast near Vera Cruz.

Rattlesnake Hill and Fat Sarah

For many years, locals called the mountain “Rattlesnake Hill.” Longtime residents can recall when the Dorena Lake dam was built in the late 1940’s; rattlesnakes slithered all down the mountain, brought out by the builders’ dynamite blasts. Many people in Cottage Grove still called the mountain Rattlesnake Hill in the 1970’s when I moved to the area. When the water is low in Dorena Lake you can still see traces of the old railroad in the lake bed.

Lewis McArthur’s book of Oregon Geographic Names says our Cerro Gordo was named because it turns golden brown in the summertime, and only “possibly” for the battle. The book credits Mr. John Veatch with this story. It is true that Cerro Gordo was golden brown in the summer, but the grass on most all Oregon hills turns brown in late summer.  Plus, the words “Cerro Gordo” do not mean any color at all in Spanish. The book also says that the words “cerro gordo” mean “a rich hill in a mining district”. But, the nearest gold mine is over twenty miles away!  There is a gold mine named Cerro Gordo in Mexico, but there has never been mining on Oregon’s Cerro Gordo.

The Cottage Grove Historical Society’s book, Cottage Grove, Golden Was the Past, Volume One, says on page 209 that early settler Bake Stewart and a Frenchman named it in 1852.  The Frenchman named the mountain for one that looked like it in France. However, the name Cerro Gordo is not French and there is no mountain in France named Cerro Gordo.  A few French loggers did live in the Row River Valley but it’s not likely they gave a mountain a Spanish name, Cerro Gordo. It would more likely be given a French name.

Another story, in Golden Was the Past, Volume One has the mountain named for an old Kalapuya Indian woman who lived there in the late 1800s.  Her name was Sarah (page 225) and she is said to have been “fat.” Hence the name “Fat Sarah” which over time becomes “Sarah Gordo” and then changes later into “Cerro Gordo”. That is a very large linguistic jump!

It is true there was an elderly Indian woman named Sarah who lived at the foot of Cerro Gordo Mt. (p.225.)  She lived on Cerro Gordo when the Doolittle family owned it. They called their 1200 acre homestead “Paradise Hill.”  I have spoken with two members of the family who told me of Sarah living there when they owned the land, but the mountain itself was called “Cerro Gordo” years before the Doolittle family bought it. The Sept 1919 newspaper article mentions Indians around Cerro Gordo, and their chief, Halotish, but it does not mention Sarah.

I moved to Cottage Grove in 1975 and have hiked around Cerro Gordo for about forty years. In researching the name of “Cerro Gordo” I found that at least ten places in the United States were named to remember the battle of Cerro Gordo in our war with Mexico.  There is a Cerro Gordo County in Iowa.  There is also a Cerro Gordo in California, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida and our own Cerro Gordo, Oregon. The battle was huge in our nation’s history at the time.

April 18, 1847  The Battle of Cerro Gordo

The Mexican War has been mostly forgotten today.  Most Americans know little about our 1847 War with Mexico.  It was overshadowed by the Civil War just twelve years later.  But, the Mexican War is remembered in the lyrics of the Marine Corps famous anthem, ‘From the Halls of Montezuma … to the Shores of Tripoli…’

Historians still argue over whether Mexico or the United States started the war.  Future President and Civil War hero General Ulysses S. Grant strongly opposed the War.  When Texas became part of the United States President Polk sent soldiers to “Secure the Border.”  In turn, Mexico rallied an army to “Repel the Invaders.” War soon followed.

The battle of Cerro Gordo was on April 18, 1847.  The Mexican commander was General Santa Anna of the 1836 fight at the Alamo, in Texas.  The Mexican War became a proving ground for the generals who later fought in the Civil War. Look at this list of names of some of our future military leaders: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, George Meade, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

What began as a conflict over the state of Texas turned into a major war. From this fight the US gained the entire Southwest including Arizona, New Mexico and California. The size of America was increased over 60%.  In 1848, gold was discovered in California, launching the gold rush. The battle at Cerro Gordo was a key to opening up the now “American” West for the European Immigrants of the 1850’s.

The map of the United States would look very different today without our war with Mexico. This historical fact is important to remember. Mexico lost over half of its land – a fact that has colored relations with the US to this day. Also, Mexican General Santa Anna lost his wooden leg in the fight.  It is now in a museum in the United States. Mexico has repeatedly asked the US to return it.

Paradise Hill & the Cerro Gordo Community

In the late 1800’s in Oregon, a Civil War vet named “Lucky” Doolittle obtained the Terrance McMurray donation land claim from the England family. The first sawmill here was called The Cerro Gordo Lumber Company. The Doolittle Family named the ranch “Paradise Hill.” They had a successful mill and homestead until the 1920s. They even had a state certified school for the loggers’ children. Dorena’s own young nature writer, Opal Whiteley taught and hiked there. Today, the old Doolittle wagon roads can still be found on the hill.

In 1974, a new group of settlers arrived to start a cooperative community on 1200 acres of what the locals had come to call “Rattlesnake Hill.”  These latest residents of Cerro Gordo have sought to build a planned village for over 2,000 people living in harmony with Nature. The development never really gotten off the ground but today there are about twenty people who live on the land.

The community has an active forestry and silvaculture program. I moved to Cottage Grove in 1975 and have hiked around the Cerro Gordo Ranch for about forty years. At the end of this article are more link videos on You Tube of myself and Cerro Gordo history.

Oregon is now in the midst of a cultural expansion from new Hispanic immigrants. Mexican descendants of the war are living alongside descendants of US veterans.  Learning about the history of Cerro Gordo Mountain and the Mexican War may help us understand our shared history. Today, the Row River Bike Trail makes a beautiful way for visitors to enjoy Cerro Gordo Mt. and Dorena Lake.