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The Hood River News, Hood River, OR., January 3, 1930, page 3

BINGEN FEELS URGE OF MORE RECOGNITION

The little town of Bingen, across the Columbia River from this city, goes into the new year with a fixed and firm determination that it will no longer play little brother to the town of White Salmon, high on the hill above it. For years, White Salmon, from its lofty perch, has dominated the landscape of the north bank of the Columbia, and has made steady growth. In the eyes of Bingen people this growth has been made at their expense and undeservedly so. But this must be changed, says the Bingenite, who points with pride to the fact that his town of lies right on what will shortly be a transcontinental highway and on a transcontinental railroad. Of course, he is conscious, very conscious, of the fact that the railroad depot, right in the very heart of his town, bears the emblem "White Salmon," but he insists that, before many months are over, the sign "Bingen," will greet the people from all parts of the world when they pass through on the trains. He contends, too, that nobody passing through on the railroad or training catches even a glimpse of White Salmon, perched as it is behind the brow of the hill, and most people have reached the erroneous conclusion that Bingen is the White Salmon referred to.
Years ago, an effort was made to persuade the railroad company to end this injustice but, because Bingen was not an incorporated town, little notice was taken of the plea. Now, however, Bingen is incorporated and is a full-fledged municipality, with a mayor, town council, recorder, police system, etc., and is willing to go to limit to prove that it is a municipality within the meaning of the act.
Sensing that Bingenites now mean business, it was recently suggested that, perhaps, a way out of the problem would be if Bingen and White Salmon combined to form one larger municipality. But the cinder in the eye of this project came when the suggestion was made that the combined towns should be known as White Salmon and thus relieving the railroad company from the cost of changing the emblem of the White Salmon depot in the heart of Bingen.
Bingenites insist that nowhere in the United States is there a similar anomaly of a railroad depot in the heart of the town named after another town located so far away that it cannot even be seen from the railroad.
And if anybody has any doubts as to how Bingen feels about the proposed consolidation, it would be well to have a talk with Theodore Suksdorf, the man who founded the town of Bingen, and who named the community after a small town on the German Rhine. He says he named the town after the town of the same name on the Rhine, the most beautiful river in Europe, and Bingen, Washington, stands on the banks of the Columbia, the most beautiful river in the United States. Asked what he thought of the consolidation of the two towns under the name of "White Salmon," he confessed that the proposed name was about as acceptable to him and his fellow Bingenites as Hangman Creek and Hell Roaring Creek would be.
So it is evident that Bingenites will pursue their project of having their railroad depot named Bingen, and thus prevent any further injustice to their fair city.