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It shouldn't come as any surprise that CDOT (Colorado
Department of Trucks, although there are some who say that
the T stands for Transportation) has trouble spelling a
town on the north edge of the San Juan Mountains. It's
supposed to be Ridgway,
but on some highway signs
it's Ridgeway,
and according to a story in the Post
last week, even residents misspell it.
The place did not get its name because it was the
way
to a ridge,
although it certainly
qualifies, on account of its location along the route up
to Dallas Divide. Instead, it was named for one Robert M.
Ridgway, a division superintendent for the Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad.
The misspelling is somewhat understandable, since R.M.
Old Tige
Ridgway is a rather obscure figure, known
only to Colorado's hard-core railroad buffs, and even in
that arcane field, his two railroading sons, Arthur and
A.C., are much better known.
Another frequent but understandable misspelling is Westcliffe, which often appears as Westcliff or even West Cliff.
The first town in the area was Silver Cliff, whose roots extend to an 1877 silver rush. The railroad arrived about a decade later.
Railroads of that era made a lot of their profits from land development -- buy some land and carve it into lots, bring in the tracks, and sell those new town lots at highly inflated prices. If the town was already in place, then the railroad lost those potential profits.
And so our valiant pioneer railroaders often ran the
tracks to spot within a mile or two of an existing town,
and started a new town so as to profit from real-estate
development (as you can see, fast-buck development is an
integral part of our history and culture, and thus you know
what Republican candidates mean when they say they want to
preserve traditional Colorado values.
)
Thus there was once a town named Animas City; the railroad bypassed it and started its own town of Durango. There was once a place named Cleora; the railroad skipped it and started its own town of Salida.
And so Silver Cliff was bypassed for Westcliffe. It is immediately west of Silver Cliff, and one might be forgiven for thinking that West Silver Cliff got compressed into Westcliff.
But the name actually comes from Westcliffe-on-the-Sea in England. That was the birthplace of Dr. William A. Bell, a railroad promoter and a large land-owner in the area, and the one who offered the name to the railroad.
Adding to the complication is the old schoolhouse in
Westcliffe, which has Westcliff
carved in stone.
Local histories say that the pioneer stonecarver spoke only
German, which led to misunderstandings and the
misspelling.
I grew up near Greeley, which was sometimes misspelled
Greely.
A friend who worked at the Greeley Tribune
about 30 years ago observed that his paychecks, printed
right there in the newspaper's job shop and proofread by
the publisher, came from the Greely Tribune.
He
mentioned this to the management and was fired shortly
thereafter, although I do not know if there was a
connection.
So, we've got CDOT, a stonecarver and a local newspaper
on the list of people who misspell Colorado place names
who should have known better.
To that I would add the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, which is supposedly the authority. The Board hates the apostrophe, and tries to eliminate it from our maps, for no good reason.
Thus we have Pikes Peak, when no person named
Pikes
ever had anything to do with the mountain. It
was named for Capt. Zebulon M. Pike, and it should be
Pike's Peak. Ditto for Ted's Place northwest of Fort
Collins, Brown's Canyon north of Salida, Granny's Nipple
near Kremmling, etc.
Little wonder that our schoolchildren, and indeed millions of adult Americans, have trouble differentiating between the plural and the possessive -- the Board sets a bad example.
Since both major-party presidential candidates have promised to improve American education, and with the Official English lobby still operating, maybe we'll see some action one of these days: order the Board to use good English and thereby show that the federal government truly cares about education.
Compared to the deliberate nationwide evil of the missing apostrophes, an occasional Ridgeway, Westcliff or Greely is a trifling matter, not even worth writing about -- except in the August silly season.
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