The Virginian-Pilot
©
In late 1969, a debate swirled around town: Is Mount Trashmore really an appropriate name.
A bold experiment to sculpt a hill out of garbage and make it into a park was nearing completion. Residents had started calling it Mount Trashmore, a play on Mount Rushmore. The name was starting to stick. Members of the city's parks and recreation commission wanted to change that before it was too late.
"I think it would be a shame to let it go any further as Mount Trashmore," Maury Riganto, chairman of the city's parks recreation and commission, said at the time.
A Beacon columnist fretted, "Will it sound fitting at some future date to announce that a concert or a cultural event of some sort is to be held at the Mount Trashmore Amphitheatre? Or that Miss Virginia Beach will be crowned in ceremonies at Mt. Trashmore. The dignity of the event would suffer at the sound of a title like that."
Riganto and others tried to name the park after the man who came up with the radical idea: Roland E. Dorer, director of the state Department of Health, Insect and Vector Control and member of the city parks commission.
Riganto directed a committee to investigate incorporating Dorer into the park's name. They returned with several options. One was Gull Dorer City Park. While under construction, the trash heap was plagued by sea gulls. Officials tried to eradicate the birds by feeding them bread laced with a deadly powdered chemical. It didn't work ("Bad Bread Fails to Gull Crafty Trash Heap Birds" was the newspaper headline).
Other suggestions included Dorer's Monticello, RED Rec City Park (after his initials, R.E.D.), Mt. Roland Park and Dorermont Park. None stuck.
Dorer said in a 1975 article that he didn't care for the name Mount Trashmore.
"It was all right to call it that when the trash was going in there," he said. "It described the operation at the time, but I think it now needs a more romantic name than Mount Trashmore."
He said he didn't like Mount Dorer, another popular suggestion. Mostly, he just wanted the debate to stop.
"Really, it embarrassed me when people talk about it. I wish they'd forget about it," he said.
He never suggested a name. Dorer died in 1987 at a mosquito control conference. He was 79.
"He was a very modest man," said one of his daughters, Donna Leigh Jackins, 79, who lives in Alabama. "He thought acts spoke for themselves."
Jackins told a story about how he preferred to use an old briefcase he'd found at the landfill rather than the new ones his wife bought him.
She said her father didn't want the park named after him.
"He just stepped into the background. That was his nature. He was just, 'Get the job done. You don't need my name on it. Just get the work done.' "
The current chairman of the city's parks and recreation commission, Nicholas Anoia, said the only people he hears complain about the name are new residents.
"They say, 'Who would name it after a trash dump?' " he said. "People like myself who grew up here like it."
Aaron Applegate, (757) 222-5122, aaron.applegate@pilotonline.com
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Mount Trashmore
Perfect name. I say, leave it alone. I believe that it is listed in some travel catalogs as one of the "wonders of the world". I just don't know what number. People all over the USA know about Mount Trashmore. I know of no other in the world, so we have something unique. Why is it that some new residents want to come into an area and start changing everything around? Sounds like illegal immigrants who come into the USA and want to change our language and our flag, etc. No problem with them coming as long as they do it the legal way. In fact, I don't blame them for wanting to come to this wonderful country. But don't come expecting to make it another Mexico, etc.
Love it or leave it is what I say. Same thing to the politicans who want to change our Constitution around and leave behind what this Great Country has stood for since its inception. I am all for change when change is due, but not the name of Mount Trashmore! I say once again, leave it Mount Trashmore and, then, enjoy the place.
Big Rolly
I am Mr. Dorer's grandson and namesake,otherwise known as Little Rolly to his Big Rolly when he was alive. I well remember trips to Mt. Trashmore under construction as a boy, the swarms of gulls and foul smell and the quiet pride my grandfather projected over the whole big mess knowing it would do good in so many ways. He was a kind and modest man and I am proud to see him remembered well here. I loved him dearly. Two things, just nit picking, but, it was Rowland not Roland, and my mother quoted here is SIGNIFICANTLY shy of 79 by a number I will not detail, but I am however absolutely certain this is a fact she would want pointed out. Otherwise thank you for the article.
Money revenues mounting
I think to subsidize the VB City budget, naming rights should be offered to some corporation. Maybe Mighty Mount Metamucil, Wendy's Hamburger Hill or even simply Hall's Hill.
Then maybe Chicks-Fil-a Beach, then Atlantic Mortgage Avenue, then Roto Rudee inlet! The skies the limit!
A better name
How about "NO Sledding or Sliding Park".
"A Beacon columnist fretted,
"A Beacon columnist fretted, 'Will it sound fitting at some future date to announce that a concert or a cultural event of some sort is to be held at the Mount Trashmore Amphitheatre?'"
Yes, it would sound fitting. I think it would be awesome to have a Mt. Trashmore Amphitheatre with some live music shows. I don't recall them ever doing that, but maybe I'm too young. Is this something they've ever actually done? If not, they should! Doesn't have to be big names or anything to take away from the big venues, but I think it would great to have some local talent jamming out with a variety of music, sorta like they do out next to Catch 31 at the oceanfront.
I second that...they have
I second that...they have small live music shows at the farmer's market at Princess Anne & Dam Neck and that can be fun to sit around with the family and eat some ice cream listening to some music. It would be great if they did that at Mt. Trashmore as well.
You know what I take away from this article?
The people of Virginia Beach gave Mount Trashmore its name, despite a handful of government officials trying to give it another name. Now, a bunch of outsiders are trying to give it another name. It's OUR park; we're keeping it the way it is.
uniqueness
what's in a name? recognition and uniqueness; we like Mt trashmore. also, how about going back to Tidewater?
$
Sell naming rights !
Walmart Heights?
Stihl Hill, Edmund Ruffin Prominence, Bruce R. Thompson's Peak?