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Yreka, a Gold Rush town in the northern California county of Siskiyou, is one of the more oddly-named (in an orthographic sense) cities in California. Explanations for the unusual spelling range from its being a pun on the name of another northern California city, Eureka (e.g., If we can have a U-reka, then why not a V-reka or a Y-reka?), to a fanciful tale told about a bakeshop in Mark Twain's autobiography: As is often the case, the truth is considerably less entertaining. What is now the city of Yreka was started in the summer of 1851 as a mining camp, initially called Thompson's Dry Diggings and later Shasta Butte City. When Siskiyou County was established in 1852, the legislature officially designated the town (which became the county seat) as Yreka, a name taken from the Shasta Indian word wáik'a', meaning white mountain or north mountain (a reference to nearby Mount Shasta). According to an 1876 article from the Yreka Journal, the unusual spelling was apparently something of an accident that was modified over time into its modern form: Although Yreka was not named for a bakery sign, the palindromic potential of such was recognized at least as far back as 1886, as noted in the following item from the Winfield Tribune (as reprinted by the Decatur Daily Review):
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