Coburg: Named for a Horse from Bavaria
Near Eugene, Oregon
Coburg has one of the more unusual origin stories in Oregon place-names. The community was originally called Diamond, after pioneer Johnny Diamond whose land claim included the site. It became a stagecoach stop and then a lumber town. But the name changed to Coburg after a stallion, a horse imported from the Coburg district of Bavaria, Germany, that was apparently well known enough locally to inspire the rename.
Lumber was the local business, with the McKenzie River and the railroad moving logs out. The town incorporated in eighteen ninety-three. Today Coburg is best known for its antique district and a historic commercial core that dates to the eighteen seventies, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in nineteen eighty-six.
