Synopsis
Toponymy, the study of place names, can be an interesting, butfrustrating endeavor. There are hundreds of place names in the TableRock Lake area. Most of the major waterways received their namesduring the exploration era of the late 1700’s to early 1800’s.Many of the major landforms, mountains and streams were namedduring the settlement period of the Ozarks. Counties followed thetypical process of being named after well-known individuals. Townnames were generally bestowed during the process of establishinga post office. This process involved coordinating the strictures ofthe U.S. Postal Service with the sometimes whimsical desires of thetownfolk. Much of the place naming of natural features like creeks,hollows and bluffs occurred in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesduring a period of extensive land purchase and homesteading. E. JoanWilson Miller writes in her study of place names, “The Naming ofthe Land in the Arkansas A Study in Cultural Processes”1:“Because place names are durable linguistic forms, they aretenacious in the land. The early name-givers were vitally part of,and concerned with, their immediate habitat. The place name wasa tool whereby they identified that which was important to them,especially if it was of practical value. This giving of names wasprobably one of their earliest activities in their environment, and itis still going on as spontaneous folk activity.Assuming the occupation of an area in which there were fewother human beings to consult, the rapid identification of practicalthings such as streams became imperative, not only for the man andhis group, but also in order to identify what was theirs and what wasknown to them against the claims of newcomers.”During research for my first two books, The History of FishingTable Rock Lake and Buried By Table Rock Lake, I became interestedin the place names of this region and their derivations. Although thestories of place naming are often interesting in themselves, I thoughtit would be more enjoyable for the reader to also experience some ofthe stories of people and events associated with these places.viToponymy can be the sources for place names areoften not well documented, if recorded at all; legends develop withlittle basis in fact and become accepted over time; different storiesarise for the name sources; and misspellings, mispronunciations andthe use of homonyms often confuse the issue.From the hundreds of place names around Table Rock, I havechosen a few to document in this book. I have tried to uncover thebest documented name sources wherever possible, but I have alsoincluded some myths and legends as they are entertaining and havebecome part of the allure of the Ozarks.This book is not intended to be a scholarly work, but I have triedto be as accurate as possible and document my research and sourceswhere appropriate. Some of these tales are well known and othersmay be new to the reader.
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