The “un-naming” of the Mad River is on the agenda of a Humboldt County agency, which this week received a report on the implications of recognizing the waterway’s traditional name, Baduwa’t.
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Michiko Mares, general manager of the Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, told the Eureka Times-Standard that the board of directors’ discussion of the matter represents the initial step in the process and that “a lot of groundwork still has to be done.”
The memo prepared by District Counsel Ryan Plotz said there is an active movement by the Baduwa’t Watershed Council and Wiyot tribal members to reclaim the waterway’s original name.
Legend has it that the name Mad River came from a notation Josiah Gregg made on a map in the late 1840s. He reportedly was noting the site of an altercation among members of his poorly provisioned expedition.
The river, 113 miles long, starts in the Coast Range in Trinity County, runs through Humboldt County and empties into the ocean north of Arcata. A community near its headwaters is also named Mad River.
Plotz’s memo [embedded below this article] outlined the involved process of changing a name at the state and federal level. The staff recommendation noted that though the district could potentially support that process if it were undertaken by another party, it is currently entertaining an alternative resolution to recognize Baduwa’t locally “while acknowledging that ‘Mad River’ remains the official federal designation.”
Recent efforts to rename other California sites have met with mixed success. Among them:
• The renaming of the Fresno County community of Squaw Valley to Yokuts Valley was officially approved by the U.S. Board of Geographic Names in 2023. County officials refused to acknowledge the new name, and they sued the state over a law that took effect this year banning the use of “squaw” in place names. A state court ruled in April that Fresno County does not have standing in the case.
• The renaming of the Mendocino County city of Fort Bragg has been advocated by some of its residents on the ground that its namesake Braxton Bragg was a slave-holding Confederate general. The North Carolina military base with the same name was redubbed Fort Liberty in 2023; under President Trump the Pentagon this year returned the name Fort Bragg, but said it honored an Army private who fought in World War II.
The Eureka Times-Standard contributed to this report.