PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — About 20 miles northeast of Portland, there’s the city of Battle Ground and how it got its name is an important part of Northwest history.
Battle Ground is home to 20,000 people, including Louise Tucker, who wrote a book about her town.
She said there could have been a battle there, but there wasn’t.
Judge William Strong, a Yale educated lawyer, volunteered as a military captain based at Fort Vancouver in the mid-1850s — a time of war between settlers and Yakama Indians.
“There was a lot of fear on both sides,” Tucker said.
Some Klickitats lived at the fort. The settlers wanted them close to keep them from joining the Yakamas, but in 1855 they left.
Strong and his militia caught up with them near Battle Ground Lake.
“And they made a parlay and they talked and they made peace, and decided they would go back to the fort,” Tucker said.
Their chief, Chief Umtuch, celebrated by wearing a gift of “fine white man clothes.”
“And then that night, someone murdered the chief,” amateur historian Don Higgins said. “To this day, we never know for sure who it was.”
Did Indians kill the chief accidentally, thinking he was white? Or did white people kill the chief for blood?
Despite the questions, Strong agreed to let the Klickitats bury their chief privately. Then, as promised, the Indians returned to Ford Vancouver. But the settlers viewed Strong’s compassion as cowardice
“They called that area ‘Strong’s battle ground,’ out of derision, to make fun of him,” Tucker said. “And eventually, ‘Strong’s’ was dropped, and it just became Battle Ground.”
So the name Battle Ground was a joke that wasn’t funny, commemorating a battle that never happened.
The biggest pet peeve for people who live in Battle Ground is that many think it’s just one word.