Hermiston, Oregon: A Town Named From an Unfinished Novel
Hermiston, Oregon, took its name from a novel Robert Louis Stevenson never got to finish, after the railroad siding’s old name, Maxwell, was already taken. The book is Weir of Hermiston, and the Federal Writers’ Project’s 1940 guide to Oregon says plainly that the town “was named for” it.
A passing track called Maxwell
Before there was a town, there was a sign beside the railroad. A 2007 Bureau of Reclamation report on the area, drawing on Ronald Ingle’s 2002 history of Hermiston, quotes a January 1907 newspaper piece that seems to have been written by the developer J. F. McNaught. When he arrived, he wrote, there was “absolutely nothing here, save a ‘passing track’, a sign post and a name. That name was Maxwell.”
McNaught’s Maxwell Land and Irrigation Company set out to build a town there and dig an irrigation canal. In August 1904 he began clearing sagebrush and putting up offices and houses on the west side of the tracks. You can see what came of it on the 1908 Geological Survey sheet: a small grid of streets hugging the railroad.
Why Stevenson, and who suggested it
McNaught first meant to keep Maxwell, according to the federal report. The trouble was that Oregon already had a Maxwell somewhere else. So he settled on Hermiston, the report says, because one of the company’s trustees “had just finished reading” Stevenson’s novel. The post office opened in March 1905, with McNaught as postmaster.
The Hermiston Museum tells it a little differently. In its version, McNaught named the town at the suggestion of his wife, Jennie. Both accounts agree on the book and on McNaught. What they don’t settle is whose idea it was, and you won’t find a document from 1904 that answers it.
Two Hermistons, then one
The name almost got used twice. Two days before McNaught filed his own papers in 1904, two other promoters, Newport and Skinner, filed a plat for a town site on the east side of the tracks. Both towns called themselves Hermiston. In 1907 they incorporated as a single town.
The novel itself never got an ending. The museum notes that Stevenson’s sudden death in 1894 cut it short. So an irrigation town in eastern Oregon carries the title of a story that stops in the middle, chosen because the name on the railroad sign was already spoken for.
Quick answers
Is Hermiston named after a book?
Yes. It’s named for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Weir of Hermiston, according to the Writers’ Project’s Oregon guide of 1940 and a 2007 Bureau of Reclamation report.
Why wasn’t the town called Maxwell?
Maxwell was the name on the railroad’s passing track when J. F. McNaught arrived, but he dropped it because the name was already in use elsewhere in Oregon.
Who picked the name Hermiston?
J. F. McNaught, the developer and first postmaster. The federal report says a company trustee had just read the novel, while the Hermiston Museum says his wife, Jennie, suggested it.
Key dates
- 1904J. F. McNaught starts clearing the town site west of the tracks; Newport and Skinner file a plat east of them.
- 1905The Hermiston post office opens in March, with McNaught as postmaster.
- 1907The two Hermistons incorporate as a single town.
Getting there
Open Hermiston in Google Maps
Opens in a new tab. The pin is the center of Hermiston in the USGS place-name record.
The closest airports, Amtrak stations and intercity bus stops, measured in a straight line from the center of Hermiston.
Airports
- Tri-Cities (PSC) Pasco 30 mi 49 km
- Walla Walla Regional (ALW) 51 mi 83 km
Amtrak trains
- Pasco station (PSC) 29 mi 47 km
- Wishram station (WIH) 82 mi 132 km
Intercity buses
- Northwestern Stage Lines Hermiston 4 mi 6 km
- Grape Line Travel Washington · Wallula 25 mi 40 km
- Wheat Line Travel Washington · Pasco Transit 28 mi 46 km
Distances are as the crow flies, not by road. We don't list schedules or fares because they change; check with the airline, Amtrak or the bus company before you go. Official data (FAA commercial service airports (2025), FAA airport locations, Amtrak stations and Intercity Bus Atlas) from the FAA and the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, checked Nov 6, 2026.
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Historical Sources & References
- Federal Writers’ Project, Oregon: End of the Trail (1940), p. 262. “It was named for the Weir of Hermiston, written by Robert Louis Stevenson.”
- U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Site Management Plan, Oxbow Property (2007), p. 32. McNaught’s Maxwell Land and Irrigation Company, the 1907 newspaper quote about Maxwell, the duplicate name, the trustee who had read the novel, the March 1905 post office, the rival plat by Newport and Skinner and the 1907 incorporation. It summarizes Ronald E. Ingle, Oasis in the Desert (2002).
- Hermiston Museum & Cultural Center, “A Novel Idea: Naming Hermiston” (2026). McNaught named the town at the suggestion of his wife, Jennie; Stevenson’s death in 1894 left the novel unfinished.
- GNIS feature 1167708 (U.S. Geological Survey). The federal entry for Hermiston, in Umatilla County, with its official coordinates.
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