The toponyms on the map can tell you more than just what to call a chunk of earth. Some describe or memorialize, and others maybe even tell a little about the hopes and feelings of those who named those places. An accessible remnant of powerful sentiment is there for the daydreaming when it comes to those place-names referencing the cosmically absolute destination of the soul and the supernatural gatekeepers of those places. These are the names tied to religion and those things human beings regard as holy or sacred. It should come as no surprise that the dominant religion that swayed in this neck of the woods when these spaces became the places we refer to them as now is reflected as text on the map. Though always on my mind is the fact that for over 10,000 years human beings with their own spiritual practices and creeds had voices of their own to refer to place, and I can’t help but wonder where the nexus between their religions and the words they used for the landmarks of Jefferson County existed.
Exploring our own connections between theology and geography, we’ll start at Go Devil Creek. A stream that drains off the south face of the Brooklyn Bridge Divide, for years I thought it was a verb followed by a noun. A demanding proclamation akin to, “Demons be gone!” It turns out though, that a go-devil is a one horse sled for hauling logs.. A go-devil is also a shallow-water outboard boat designed for the swamps of the southeastern US, but the fact that one can find Go Devil Creek on maps over 70 years old and that that gulch is lacking any swamps makes me think it references the former.
In the southern Elkhorns we find two references that link to the infernal regions of the supernatural and the fires of the damned. The Blazing Place is a historic populated place registered with the U.S. Bureau of Geographic Names, and can be found on Forest Service maps of old. It is located near the mouth of Tacoma Gulch, where Elkhorn Creek and its canyon opens up to the sage of the upper Boulder Valley. Maybe the name refers to the last name of the folks who first settled there, and has nothing to do with Hell. To blaze is to burn fiercely, and having spent time on the banks of Elkhorn Creek with a fishing rod, I’ve always found it to feel like the opposite of the underworld.
