Lincoln County information on Landmark Names taken from the USDA Forest Service

                         

Historical Names in LC, MT.

 ABE LINCOLN MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)

The mountain was named for President Lincoln by the early gold miners of the Yahk Mining District in 1895.  The north end       of the mountain was visited by prospectors from the gold town of Sylvanite, on Fourth of July Creek, while the south end came under the scrutiny of the mining tent camp of Paisley on Wampoo Creek.

ALICE MOUNTAIN (Bull Lake Valley - Iron Creek)

A name used to describe the Freeman Group of Mining Claims, in 1916.  This mountain was also known as Haystack Mountain.

ALVORD LAKE (General Troy Area)   

Named for Frank E. Alvord, an early 1895 Troy resident who homesteaded 160 acres, which included this lake in 1905.  The land was patented to him in 1908.  After a succession of owners, the lake is known today as Ninneman Lake.

ANGEL ISLAND (Bull Lake)  

The area known today as Angel Island was named for Earl Angell, the cashier for many years in the old Kootenai Valley State Bank in Troy, who help promote the development of Bull Lake around the World War I era.  For a short period, in the 1960s, the land was shown as Callow's Island, but the name reverted back to Angel Island by the 1970s.

ARBO CREEK and ARBO MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)

Named for George Arbo, a miner who came into the Yaak in 1896 and prospected in the Arbo Creek drainage.  George Arbo maintained a small camp along Arbo Creek for two years (1896-1897) as he prospected in the area.  He was not a stranger to the Troy area, having prospected and filed on a number of claims on Grouse Mountain between 1890 and 1892.

B & B MINE

(See Banner and Bangle Mine)

BAD MEDICINE CAMPGROUNDS (Bull Lake)  

A Forest Service Campgrounds located on the southwestern shore of Bull Lake, an area shunned by the Kootenai Indians after a slide, long ago, devastated a small encampment which killed the inhabitants.  The name applies generally to the western shore of Bull Lake.

BAKER LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)

An early named for what is know as Milnor Lake today.  Named for Napoleon Baker, a squatter homesteader who settled on land surrounding the lake in 1893.  The lake was called Baker Lake between 1893 and c.1905 after which it became known as Milnor Lake.

BANNER MOUNTAIN (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek) 

A early name for Goat Mountain.  Named for the Banner Lode claim, of the Banner and Bangle Mine, which was located at the foot of the mountain on the north.  The name persisted during the 1890s but eventually was changed shortly after the turn of the century.

BANNER & BANGLE MINE (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)

Two important, patented, galena claims located in the Callahan Creek, south of Troy in 1893.  The Banner Lode Claim and the Banner Lode Claim were incorporated as the Banner & Bangle Mining Co. in 1895 (often called the B & B Mine).  Sold to the Snow Storm Silver-Lead Mining Company in 1916, becoming known as the Snowstorm Mine.  Between 1916 and 1927 over four million dollars worth of ore had been removed by the Snow Storm Silver-Lead Company.

BLACK BEAR CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek) 

Located in the Callahan Creek Drainage, was known simply as Bear Creek prior to c.1920.

BEAR WALLOW SPRINGS (Bull Lake Valley - Iron Creek)

Located southwest of the Liberty Metals Mining Company camp.  Located within the old 1930s power line right of way up Grouse Mountain, at 3000' in elevation, and in the SE/SW/SW of Section35, T30N, R34W. The name dates to the 1920s.

BEAVER CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named by an early Yaak Valley trapper.  His name is unknown but he had built a cabin on its banks.  He left the valley in 1901 when it “became too crowded” when the Roderick family moved into the South Fork of the Yaak.

BELLYACHE DRAW

(See Meeks Creek)

BENEFIELD CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named for Francis Elmer Benefield, an early trapper in the area and a 1914 Yaak Valley homesteader.  The ruins of one of his line cabins is still located on the creek.

BENNING MOUNTAIN and BENNING CREEK (Bull Lake Valley) 

Named for Frank Benning, first District Ranger at Sylvanite (1908-1909).

BIG EIGHT MINE (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek) 

The name for the two patented galena mining properties, the Heron Lode and Cabinet Lode claims, located on Callahan Creek in 1889.  Became the Big Eight Mining Company in 1897, named for the eight partners in the mine at that time.

BOB CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek) 

Early maps show this name for a now unnamed drainage up Callahan Creek.  It is the first major drainage east of July Creek.  It was named for Robert “Big Bob” Hulse, an 1890 prospector.  In 1917, it was called Small Creek, and for a short while also called Halahar Creek (also in 1917).

BOX CAR CREEK (Kootenai Falls)    

An 1890s name for Koot Creek at Kootenai Falls.  In 1896, twenty-two G.N.R.R. cars derailed into the Kootenai and floated over the falls.  Some of the broken up cars came to rest below the falls at the mouth of this small creek.  There was no way to salvage the cars so they remained in the river.  Subsequent flooding of the Kootenai River eventually broke apart and scattered the wreckage.  However, a railroad car undercarriage or two may still be seen in the river during periods of low water.  The name is shown on the 1897 Montana Map.

BOYD CEMETERY and BOYD CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named in 1954 for Adam E. Boyd, an early prospector who died in 1917 in his cabin near Boyd Creek, and the first person to be buried in the cemetery.  Adam Boyd was born in 1863 and appeared to have worked for the railroad until about 1911 when he turned to prospecting.

BROWNING CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named for Bert Browning, an early settler in 1914.

BUCKHORN LODGE (Yaak River Valley) 

The Buckhorn Lodge was the name given to a false front building located above the Yaak Falls, at the mouth of Wampoo Creek on the Harry Higgins homestead.  In the 1890s, it was a stage stop between Leonia and Sylvanite.  In 1895 a tent mining camp known as Paisley was established on the site, later the lodge was built and called the Paisley House.  This structure was the oldest known building in the Yaak Valley until it burned in the spring of 1996.

BUCKHORN MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)     

Named for the Buckhorn Mine which was opened on the mountain in the 1890s.  The stampede for gold into the Yaak River Valley in 1894/1895 coincided with a rush into the surrounding mountains from the Idaho side, up the Moyie River to the mountain.  For awhile, the two areas were considered as one and called the Moyie-Yahk Mining District.  The mine and all the buildings was destroyed in the Wildfire of 1931.

BULL LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)

Called by that name since the 1870s.  A few old c.1905 Blackfeet Timber Company maps called it Summit Lake.

BULL RIVER ROAD (Bull Lake Valley)

Became a county (Missoula) road in August of 1891.  However, approximately 17 miles of very crude road up from the Clark Fork River had been pioneered by the Star Lumber Company (1885-1895) by 1890.  The Great Northern R.R. completed the road in 1891, which it used to move supplies from Smead's Spur on the Northern Pacific R.R. to Lake City (Troy) where it was constructing a railroad grade down the Kootenai Valley.  By 1893, the road was only occasionally used and deteriorate.  For the next twenty years, the road was maintained and used by homesteaders, those living above Bull Lake traveling to Troy while those living below Bull Lake traveling to Noxon, leaving a small section in the middle un-maintained.  The first automobile to traverse the whole route was in 1915 and took twelve hours.   

BULL LAKE RANGER STATION (Bull Lake)  

The Bull Lake Ranger Station was withdrawn from homesteading on February 27, 1909.  In 1910 a cabin was built by the Forest Service on the site and used as an administration station.  Today the site is known as Dorr Skeel Campgrounds. 

BULL LAKE SCHOOL (Bull Lake Valley)

In c.1901 a log school house was built just south of Dry Creek.  School was conducted in this building until 1921 when the school was moved south onto the Tallmadge (Edwina Tallmadge Stanley) Homestead.  Classes were held in this school house until the school district consolidated with Troy in 1937.

BURNT CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Also known as “Burned Creek,” was named by early prospectors in c.1895.

CABINET RANGER STATION  (General Troy Area)   

A U.S. Forest Service administrative site and headquarters for the Cabinet Ranger District, Kootenai National Forest.  Began operations in 1908, located at the current site of the Troy Ranger Station on the Three River Ranger District.  The Cabinet Ranger Station operated until 1932 when its named was changed to the Troy Ranger Station on the newly reorganized Troy Ranger District, Kootenai National Forest.

CALLAHAN CREEK (General Troy Area)   

Named for a prospector named Timothy Callahan, an early 1890 prospector.  The name was probably given to the creek by a Great Northern Railroad survey crew who passed through the area in 1890 and encountered Mr. Callahan at work on his placer claim at the mouth of the creek.  However, between 1889 and 1890 creek was called Tillotson Creek.

CALLAHAN CREEK - NORTH FORK

(See Gordon Creek)

CALLAHAN CREEK ROAD  (General Troy Area)   

Forest Service Road #427 began as a trail in 1890, from the Kootenai River up Callahan Creek for approximately six and a half miles to the Big Eight Mine which was being developed.  Ore from the Big Eight was transported on the backs of pack animals at an expensive cost.  Finally a wagon road was started by the county (Flathead) in 1895, however, it was not completed between Troy and the Big Eight Mine and the Banner & Bangle Mines until 1911.

CAMP CREEK (Bull Lake Valley) 

In 1910, a logging camp was located somewhere on this creek, and has been known as Camp Creek ever since. Before that the creek was known Station Creek.

CARIBOU CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named after the Caribou that use to be seen there.

CARIBOU CAMPGROUNDS (Yaak River Valley)

A campground established on the banks of Caribou Creek by the Forest Service in 1963.  A cabin was once located there, built by the U.S. Forest Service in c.1914, as a night stop for Upper Yaak residents on their way by horse and wagon to the towns of Gateway and Eureka.

CHINA MOUNTAIN, CHINA CREEK and CHINA LAKE (Kootenai Falls)    

Named for Chinese miners who were engaged in placer and hard rock mining in the drainage.   China Creek shows up as early as 1892 on some maps.

CLARK MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)     

Named for Alfred E. Clarke, an early 1914 homesteader in the Yaak Valley.  He came from England and worked on the construction of the Canadian Pacific R.R. through British Columbia before coming into the Yaak Valley.

CLARK SCHOOL HOUSE (Yaak River Valley)

In 1921, a school building was constructed on the Alfred Clarke homestead for the students of the Sylvanite School District.  Shortly after the school was constructed, it was found that the building was actually on government land, the Sylvanite Ranger Station.  Clarke School House was used more as a reference to the school's location, but officially called the Sylvanite School House.  Used as a school until 1926.

CLEAR CREEK (Yaak River Valley)

From the early 1890s up to 1912 was the name used for today's Blacktail Creek located in the east fork of the Yaak River.

COMMUNITY HALL (Yaak River Valley)

A log building built by Walter Smoot and local residents in 1925 for the expressed purpose as a community center.  This building became a social hall and was heavily used by the local population for dances and parties.  The building still stands and is still used as a community hall by Yaak residents.

COOL CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Harry Markley, Dick Ramy and two other prospectors by the names of Smith and Cole, on returning from the Wild Horse Gold Rush in British Columbia in 1865 camped along the Yahk River.  While camped they reportedly discovered a deposit of coal along a nearby creek.  As coal had no value at that time, nothing was done about the find.  Later, many attempts would be made to relocate the coal.  Early Forest Service maps shows this creek as Coal Creek, a name that was later changed to Cool Creek.  The coal deposit has never been relocated.    

CRUM CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named for Hiram G. “Hi” Crum, an early prospector and miner who moved into the lower Yaak Valley in 1911.  He also filed on a homesteader on Seventeen Mile Creek in 1911.

CRAWFORD CREEK (Yaak River Valley) 

Named for James T. Crawford, and early Sylvanite prospector. Crawford was born in Ohio in 1842, moved slowly westward until he reached the Yaak Valley in 1892.  He prospected and worked his claims in the historic Yahk Mining District until he homestead 160 acres of land in the Pine Creek drainage in 1903.  He continued prospecting right up to the time of his death in 1920.  His body was sent east and he was buried at Siotoville, Ohio. Crawford Creek runs through the Sylvanite Work Center.   

CROWELL CREEK and CROWELL MOUNTAIN (Bull Lake Valley)

These landmark names may have resulted in the corruption ofthe name Kroll.  In 1893, Joseph Kroll lived south of what is now known as Crowell Creek.  The creek is shown as Croll Creek on some early Kootenai National Forest Plat Maps.  

CRYSTAL LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)

A name used by John Van Dyke and local people for a small pond of water located near Savage Lake.

CYCLONE CREEK (Yaak River Valley)

Named by early miners in about 1893.  Even today, strong, cyclone type winds blow periodically in the drainage, leveling small areas of timber.

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