COUNCIL TO DISCUSS TOWN NAME CHANGE
City says change could cost more than $271,000
In a Facebook post published last week, Fort Bragg Mayor Will Lee announced the City Council will be discussing a possible name change. The town is named after a Confederate Army general, Braxton Bragg.
“Responding to many requests (some local and many not)” the post said, “Fort Bragg Mayor Will Lee would like to announce that at the June 22, 2020 Regular City Council meeting, the City Council will discuss whether to place the question of changing the City’s name on the ballot in November for City residents to decide.”
According to city documents, the City Council can adopt an ordinance by a four-fifths vote to change the name of the city, or it can bring forward a measure at the next general election to put the question to the voters.
If it goes to ballot and passes, the new name could become effective as soon as Dec. 3, thirty days after the vote. If the measure fails, a name change could not be considered for at least another two years.
The city of Fort Bragg was founded by 1st Lt. Horatio G. Gibson and named after Gibson’s former commanding officer in the Mexican American War, Gen. Bragg.
In 1857, Gibson was the first to establish a military post in the area, a few miles north of the Noyo River harbor. The post was first called Camp Bragg and later known as Fort Bragg.
Gen. Bragg had gained some
respect during the Mexican American War, while defending an artillery battery in 1847 alongside later U.S. President Zachary Taylor. Gibson named the military outpost in California after his former commanding officer just 10 years later.
In the 1860s, Bragg turned traitor, serving as a general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War, and as a close military advisor to Confederate
President, Jefferson Davis. He is considered by modern-day historians to be an especially terrible commander, and his defeats in battle are generally cited as significant factors to the Confederate loss. Bragg also owned more than 100 slaves.
According to the city, it could cost approximately $271,000 or more to change the name of Fort Bragg, including $20,000 to change the town sign; another $50,000 to change city letterhead, business cards, logos, city seal, PD badges, patches and more; $75,000
to change street signs, banners, city buildings and parks signage; and $90,000 to update and redevelop the “Visit Fort Bragg” promotional campaign and website, which would include the cost of a public relations or marketing firm to help with messaging, to tie the old Fort Bragg to the new city name.
Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is also named for the same man. The town’s history cites the general’s victory in the Mexican American War, and was established in 1918.
It, too, is at the center of
a national debate surrounding places and military bases named after Confederate leaders.
Bragg was born and raised in North Carolina, and leaders there have recently said they’re open to the discussion of a name change.
The subject of a possible name change for Fort Bragg, Calif. most recently came up in 2015. Then-assemblyman Tony Thurmond, a member of the Black Caucus, introduced legislation that would have mandated the change. Thurmond is now the California
State Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Then-mayor Lindy Peters — who currently serves on the Fort Bragg City Council — told KPIX 5, a CBS affiliate in the Bay Area, “The cost of changing all the addresses, all the companies, all the institutions, it would be a nightmare for the post office, a complete nightmare for our local post office.”
“The man never set foot in our town, we have no statues, and we’re Fort Bragg because we’re Fort Bragg gosh darn-it, and we’re proud of being from
Fort Bragg, and we don’t want anyone from outside coming in and telling us to change our name,” Peters said in 2015.
The San Francisco Chronicle also reported then that there had been a previous attempt to change the town’s name in 2004.
As of last Friday night, the mayor’s Facebook post had more than 600 shares and nearly 400 comments — the vast majority strongly against the idea of a change.