Where Did the Name Derro Island Come From?

Many of us have grown up swimming, camping, fishing and swinging off the rope swing at Derro (formerly called Darrow) Island. But how did it get its name? This is a simple one; it’s a family name. The Derro Family farmed this piece of property well before the Flowage was formed. We don’t know a lot about this family, as Oscar Treland was not born until 1919, so most of his memory of it is what he was told. He does remember as a boy being paid to pick corn at the Derro Farm, as well as the buckboards riding down the old trail that ran perpendicular to the “Treland Channel”. Their buckboards with horses used to go down through the spring water (the channel) and up onto what is now Derro Island. If you go out onto the island today, there is still the foundation of the old house and some fence posts.

The Derro family vacated the property in the late 1920’s. After the Great Depression, the Civilian Conservation Core was formed as part of the New Deal, to get people back to work. One of the many relief jobs that the government paid people to do was plant trees all over the U.S. One of the locations that they planted trees was at the old Derro Farm. So the next time that you are in Moss Creek, pay attention to the tree lines on Derro Island, and take notice of the two pine plantations – and imagine it as it once was; the Derro family farm and homestead.