Have a great trivia tidbit for you today! It comes from a book published in 1978 by the Franklin County Historical Society titled Railroads, Reclamation & The River, A History of Pasco, by Walter A. Oberst.

In this book, Oberst explains how the town got its name. On page 6 of his book, he quotes from an article in the Pasco Express, a Pasco weekly newspaper, on July 31, 1914:  Man Who Named Pasco Visits City.

“V.C. Bogue, now an eminent engineer of New York City, renews acquaintances in Pasco on Monday. This was his fist visit in nearly thirty years. Mr. Bogue, as an engineer for the Northern Pacific Railroad, located the route of the N.P. through Stampede Pass in the Cascade Mountains, and he also located and named Pasco.

“Just how he came to choose the name was news to this reporter …… just prior to his engagement with the N.P., Bogue had successfully constructed a line of railway across the Andes Mountains in South America. The highest point on the railway was a mining town named Cerro de Pasco. It was distinguished as a windy, dusty place, and so on the first day he spent in our city, and meeting with a good old-fashioned dust storm, he was reminded of this place in the Andes and tagged the new townsite “Pasco.'”

P.S. This town still exists! This from Wikipedia: Cerro de Pasco is a city in central Peru, located at the top of the Andean mountains. It is the capital of the Pasco region, and an important mining center.