BY JENI DEERY
deery@newsroom.byu.edu
When naming a child, sometimes the proud parents look in a book or use a relative's name to identify the baby.
But, when naming the settlements in Utah County, a different approach was taken.
An Indian attack, the name of an ancient prophet, the kind of tree where mail was delivered are among the ways the cities were named.
Perhaps the loser of the spelling bee is the one who gets credit for naming the city of Lindon.
Lindon was once known as Stringtown with several other bordering towns such as Pleasant Grove. Each town applied for its own post office in 1889, so they each needed a name. It was decided that it would be named for the old Linden tree that had been the landmark where the mail had been delivered by stagecoach.
The only problem was someone made a mistake, and the city wasn't spelled like the tree that ends with an 'e-n.' The mistake of ending with an 'o-n' was never corrected.
'Sounds like it was easier than going back to Washington to get it corrected,' said Teresa Newman, with Lindon City accounts payable.
Lindon, Colo., is the only other city in the nation spelled the same. But, the 12 people who live there, may not exactly call it a city.
'We're really just a little village,' said Buni Riemenschneider, the postmaster, who has lived there all 59 years of her life.
She wasn't positive about its history and with only a caf? and post office in the town, she said there's no way of finding a definite record.
But she thinks it was named after a man with the last name Linbeck - not from a misspelling of a kind of tree.
Although the name of the man who Provo was named after most likely wasn't spelled the same as the city, it may be better that it's spelled how it is.
Provo was originally Fort Utah but was renamed Provo after a well-known French-Canadian trapper, Etienne Proveau, who first arrived in 1825.
But his last name is spelled more than one way in the history books - Provost, Provot, and Provaux. Imagine non-Utah folk trying to spell one of those on the address of a letter.
The name was first given to the Provo River that is now known as the Jordan River, according to Robert D. Carter, who is writing a book about Provo's history.
'I think along there (the now Jordan River) Proveau had a scrubbage with the Indians,' Carter said.
According to nationalatlas.gov, there are three other cities in the nation with the spelling Provo - in Arkansas, Kentucky and South Dakota. But Provo, Utah, is the only city to make Webster's Dictionary.
Besides Indians and trappers, other city names in the valley came from pioneers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Before Lehi became a city it was once Dry Creek and even Evansville for the first LDS Bishop there, David Evans, according to Richard Van Wagoner, author of 'Lehi: Portraits of a Utah Town.'
'He (Evans) didn't want the town named after him, but he wanted the name to reflect a higher standard, rather than calling it Dry Creek,' Van Wagoner said. 'He wanted it to reflect something more significant than himself or a landmark.'
He decided on the name Lehi after the prophet in the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
He felt Lehi was appropriate since in the Book of Mormon the prophet wandered in the forest and then settled in the Promised Land. This is what Evans felt the pioneers, who established the city, had done, Van Wagoner said.
Although this name may seem unique to a state with LDS heritage, there is also a Lehi in Arkansas and in Arizona.
Alpine is another city that received its name from LDS pioneers.
Originally, it was called Mountainville, but Brigham Young came to the settlement and said it reminded him of the Swiss Alps, so the name changed to Alpine, said Charmayne Buckner, administrative assistant for Alpine City.
Orem's name came from someone who was never a prominent member of the community; in fact, he never even lived there.
According to the Orem City Web site, www.orem.gov, the fruit growers of the community thought that if they named the community after Walter C. Orem, the president of the Salt Lake and Utah Electric Interurban Railroad, they might receive some generous favors from him.
Their plan worked, and he bought 40-acres of land in the 800 North area of the city -- which eventually helped the city recover from its debt from the construction of its first water supply, says the city's Web site.
Although most of the city names in the county came in a roundabout way, the names reflect the county's heritage of LDS pioneers, trappers, Indians and railroad gurus who helped establish the area.