Loomis, California: Five Names Looking for a Town
California
The small Placer County community now called Loomis has gone by so many names it became a running joke among railroad dispatchers. Gold miners settled the area around eighteen fifty and called it The Grove. In eighteen sixty-one the name changed to Placer.
The following year it became Smithville. After the Central Pacific Railroad arrived and the town moved to meet the tracks, it was renamed Pino in eighteen sixty-nine. That lasted until the railroad and post office found that Pino was constantly confused with Reno in Nevada.
On May twenty-eighth, eighteen ninety, the town was renamed Loomis, honoring a popular citizen named Loomis who had served as postmaster, express agent, store keeper, and saloon keeper, all at once. Five names in forty years. Today Loomis is a small incorporated town in the Sacramento foothills, known for its farms and its proximity to Interstate Eighty.
