Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/472

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406
Lewis A. McArthur

and has an elevation of 794 feet. It was named for Perry Cooper who was born in Ohio in 1825 and was a pioneer of Oregon. He settled on the slopes of this mountain in March, 1853.

Cooper Spur, Hood River County. David Cooper was an early settler in Hood River Valley, and lived not far from the present site of Mt. Hood post office. He had a camping place on the east slopes of Mt. Hood and the spur was named for him. It separates Eliot Glacier from Newton Clark Glacier.

Coos County. Coos County was created December 22, 1853, by the Territorial Legislature. It originally comprised parts of the western portions of Umpqua and Jackson Counties. Coos is an Indian name of a native tribe whose habitat was the vicinity of Coos Bay. The name is first mentioned by Lewis and Clark, who spell it Cook-koo-oose (Thwaites' Original Journals, volume VI, page 117). The explorers heard the name among the Clatsop Indians, Slacum, in his report of 1837, gives the name of Coos River, Cowis; Wilkes, in Western America, spells it Cowes. The spelling has been variously Koo'as, Kowes, Coose, and finally Coos. For description of Coos Bay, see The Oregonian, June 11, 1873, article signed "Northwest." For description of the Oregon coast south of Coos Bay, by the same writer, ibid., July 9, 1873. One Indian meaning of Coos ascribed is "lake," another, "place of pines" (ibid., August 26, 1902, page 12). Perry B. Marple, who began exploiting Coos Bay in 1853, spelled the word Coose, and said it was an Indian per- version of the English word coast, meaning a place where ships can land. See his advertisement, ibid., January 7, 1854. Another version is that the Indian word was made to resemble the name of a county in New Hampshire (ibid., December 9, 1890, page 6). The Coos Indians were of the Kusan family, formerly living at Coos Bay. Lewis and Clark estimated their population at 1500 in