How Cerro Gordo Mountain in Oregon Got Its Name

The Battle of Cerro Gordo, April 18, 1847

By Stephen Williamson   © 2001

This article was written for the Cottage Grove Historical Society
and their book, Golden Was the Past Vol 2.

It was reprinted in the Cottage Grove Sentinel

The way that names become attached to places is fascinating.  A name might mean something important to one generation, but mean little to the next.  The deeds of pioneers are often forgotten by their grandchildren.  For example, very few people in Cottage Grove can tell you even one of the several versions of how Cerro Gordo Mountain got its name.

Anyone who has lived in Cottage Grove has seen Cerro Gordo Mountain standing in the distance down Main Street towards Dorena Lake. The words “Cerro Gordo” mean a large or rich hill.  You might wonder why a mountain in Oregon would have a Spanish name. Actually, there are at least four legends telling how our mountain was named.

My research has convinced me that Cerro Gordo Mountain was named after a famous mountain in Mexico.  This mountain was the site of a battle that was the turning point in our 1847 war with Mexico. It was the largest single battle the US had ever engaged in until then.  The battle of Cerro Gordo happened in April of 1847.  Many veterans of the Mexican War came home through California and settled in Oregon.  There were also seven other places around the United States named to honor the battle of Cerro Gordo.

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.

The September 19, 1919 article says that our Cerro Gordo was named for the famous battle in our war with Mexico. “According to Dr. Oglesby (a physician and very early gold miner) this mountain was given its present name in by Terrence McMurray, a pioneer settler in that section who fought in the Mexican War, who also named the valley east Buena Vista, the names being after those of a mountain and valley in Mexico.” (Terrance McMurray owned the original donation land claim that became Cerro Gordo.)

For many years, local people called it “Rattlesnake Hill”.  Old timers can recall when the Dorena dam was built in 1948 and how rattlesnakes slithered all down the mountain, brought out by the builders’ dynamite blasts.

Our own local history book, Cottage Grove, Golden Was the Past, says on page 209 that 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.  Another version has it named for an old Calapooya Indian woman who lived there at the turn of the century with the Doolittle family. Her name was “Fat Sarah”. ( page 225 ) Each of these stories probably contain a bit of truth.

The usually authoritative book of Oregon Geographic Names by Lewis McArthur, says our Cerro Gordo was named because it turns golden brown in the summertime, and only possibly for the battle.  It also states that the words "Cerro Gordo" in Spanish mean "a rich hill in a mining district". The book says that Mr. John Veatch, who grew up in the area, told this to Lewis McArthur in 1945. It is true that Cerro Gordo Mountain is golden brown in the summer, but the grass on most Oregon hills turns brown in late summer and neither word means the color gold.

The name "Cerro Gordo" is not unique to Oregon.  At least seven places in the United States were named to remember the battle of Cerro Gordo.  There is a Cerro Gordo gold mine in California, but there are also places named Cerro Gordo in Iowa, Illinois and Florida - nether of which have large hills or gold mines.

There is a Cerro Gordo in California, Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Florida and our own Cerro Gordo, Oregon.  I looked up information on these places and found that each of them was named for this important battle in our war with Mexico.

The Mexican War has been mostly forgotten today.  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...”

The Mexican commander was General Santa Anna - of the 1836 fight at the Alamo, in Texas.  In addition to getting revenge against Santa Anna, The Mexican War became a proving ground for the soldiers who later fought in the Civil War. Look at this list of names of some of our future leaders: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, George Meade, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

Historians from Mexico and the United States still differ on who started the war.  What began as a border conflict over the state of Texas turned into a major war. From this fight the US gained the entire Southwest of 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.  While American history books tend to skip over the war, it has never been forgotten south of the border.

Mexico lost over half of its land - a fact that has colored relations with the US to this day. Santa Anna lost his wooden leg in the fight and a popular song was written about it.  The text of the song is reproduced below. A good history of the battle of Cerro Gordo is Time Life’s 1978 book, The Mexican War.  There are also several web sites, both American and Mexican about the war at the end of this article.

It is said that our Cerro Gordo mountain looks much like the Cerro Gordo mountain in Mexico.  When I looked up pictures of the Cerro Gordo mountain in Mexico I was astonished at how much the two hills resemble each other.

This image is from the fine website created by descendent's of Mexican War veterans. Any resident of Cottage Grove would say that it looks much like Cerro Gordo and Bald mountain viewed from Dorena Lake.

In the late 1800's a Civil War veteran named "Lucky" Doolittle bought the McMurray donation land claim from the England family who had run a large farm.

The Doolittle Family named the valley, “Paradise Hill”. They had a successful mill and homestead until the 1920's. Their sawmill was called The Cerro Gordo Lumber Company. They even had a state certified school and Dorena’s own young nature writer, Opal Whiteley taught and hiked there. Today, the old Doolittle wagon road can still be found on the ranch.

In 1974, a new group of young settlers arrived to build a new town on 1200 acres of what local folks had come to call “Rattlesnake Hill”. For a quarter century, these latest residents of Cerro Gordo have sought to build a planned village for 2,000 people living in harmony with Nature and with less reliance on oil or the automobile. The housing  development has never really gotten off the ground but there are about forty people who live on the ranch.  However, the Community has an active forestry and land management program. I was one of these new arrivals to Cerro Gordo.  A photo at the bottom of this page shows me back when I worked on the railroad.

The story of how our mountain came to be called Cerro Gordo is fascinating.  It points out how the meaning of a place name can change over time. Because the 1919 newspaper article is over a quarter century older than earlier versions - and that at least seven other places in the US are named Cerro Gordo - I believe that the original name was to honor the veterans of our now almost forgotten war with Mexico.

Oregon is now in the midst of a huge cultural expansion from new Hispanic immigrants. Some of the Mexican descendants of the war are now 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.

Stephen Williamson works with the University of Oregon doing research on life and writings of the Oregon writer Opal Whiteley.  He moved to the Cerro Gordo Ranch outside of Cottage Grove in 1976. 

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