08/26/2026
Arizona Jim posted this, it is a article written by Bill Jennings and is in his book "On My Side" which can be purchased at the Hemet Museum or on our website.
On My Side
Don’t Stamp Out History with New Names (June 8, 1971)
HEMET — Being an over-the-hill reporter has its advantages, as all the young whippersnappers who write so much of the personal narration that passes for objective news nowadays must admit.
You have the glorious advantage of hindsight and can bore everyone at staff meetings with exciting accounts of how things went sour. For example, at my age and seniority level I can talk knowingly of four or five Palm Springs horse racing track failures, the great cement plant fiasco of Whitewater, Hemet, Palm Springs and other waypoints.
Or you can tell great, if slightly distorted, anecdotes about the colorful news sources you knew in the good old days which were neither good nor even interesting, in the most part.
But there are discouragements, too, such as the continuing bastardization of our colorful place names in Riverside County. Many of these will not survive, and many others are for the better of course. When you think about it, that’s what history really is, the recording of changes in this world during man’s inevitable collision course with oblivion.
For example, nobody but me ever says Coyote Pass any more. It’s Green Acres since Colorado River Water came to die parched divide in the hills between Hemet and Homeland.
And now it’s Roseland, where it used to be the Four-Mile Place to describe the area around Florida and California avenues, the gateway to the Maze Stone Canyon, which used to be Meinhardt and later Reinhardt canyons.
And pretty soon nobody is going to remember where Ethanac is, the ill-fated subdivision boom town known today as Romoland and named originally for Ethan Allen Chase, its founder.
Gilman Hot Springs is hastening its own demise on the place name list with reference to itself as Massacre Canyon Inn.
Florida became Valle Vista years ago and Temecula as a dateline for news stories usually becomes Rancho California today.
* * *
It’s happening everywhere, not just in the San Jacinto, whoops, I mean the Hemet-San Jacinto, Valley.
Shaver Summit slipped into Chiriaco Summit after World War II and nobody under 30 ever heard of Cactus City.
Vail Lake almost lost its identity and now Auld Valley has. Egan disappeared to be succeeded by Hemet-Ryan Airport.
Wi******er used to be Pleasant Valley and Cahuilla Plains gave up the ghost to Anza a half century ago.
Arabia lost out to Thermal and Walters to Mecca. West Riverside is no longer anywhere. Wineville became Mira Loma and Terra Cotta isn’t on anyone’s map except Evaline Morrison’s and mine.
Pinacate is preserved, precariously, by the Orange Empire Trolley Museum and Rincon, Prado, South Riverside, El Cerrito and Temescal were devoured by Corona long ago.
Who in the Palo Verde Valley but Horace Miller ever heard of Neighbours?
The biggest villains of all, in my old book, however, are those who willfully change place name spelling at an apparent whim or desire to show their omniscience.
This list of losers is being expanded all the time. Chuckawalla is becoming the way to spell Chuckwalla, and now somebody has made Corn Spring plural, even though there’s only one spring.
We have had minor battles over a public park. There are devotes of Herkey versus Hurkey for the creek. Cabazon, although the Indian’s name was spelled Cabezon, and Brynmawr at the foot of San Timoteo Canyon is now two words.
The old post office department was a problem here, preferring two part names run into one. Vallevista was another postal example. LaQuinta is one word in the postal history books. Both spellings are recognized for Murrieta and Murrietta, although two “t” Spanish spelling must be unique, to say the least.
The railroads have helped stamp out history too, by abandoning stations that were the life center for little towns, or like El Casco, the only thing in town.
School districts have helped hold the line, however. Val Verde is immortalized, as are Cottonwood, Hamilton and to a degree, Hyatt.
Fertilla swallowed Mesaville and both succumbed in 1930 to megapolis Blythe. Rice used to be Blythe Junction and in my golden youth Borego was spelled that way, with only one “r.”
Garnet is anyone’s guess nowadays. It’s not really North Palm Springs. Rannells lost to Ripley. Salton switched to Mecca and Noria had a short but exciting life before becoming Edom. It had been Gray before that and now nobody ever heard of any of them.
* * *
The Indians are trying to change Palm Springs back to Kawasik or some other authentic name, but you know what chance they have, since the chamber of commerce has convinced the news services that everything from Sandy Point to Point Happy is really Palm Springs anyway.
Leon lost to Perris; Lexow lasted only two months back in 1896, and Kokell grew to Thermal.
Can someone tell me where Lexow was? That’s the elusive one.
I’ve been to Outing and to Kenworthy, to Diamente and Eden, even slowed down going through Rayneta, but Lexow? Nowhere!
Bill Jennings
