The city of Eugene, Oregon, is named after Eugene Franklin Skinner, one of the area’s first white settlers in 1846.
Skinner built a cabin in an elevated location on the west bank of the Willamette River, still known today as Skinner Butte, where he operated a trading post, and had it registered as a post office in 1850.
1851 saw the town of Eugene City being laid out, incorporated as a city in 1862, and its name later shortened to Eugene in 1889. Skinner died in 1864 and is buried in Eugene’s Masonic Cemetery. A life size bronze sculpture of Eugene Skinner, seated on a block of basalt rock from Skinner Butte, by local sculptor Jim Carpenter, was placed outside Eugene Public Library in 2002.
