Lincoln County Landmark Names J-N
JOHNSON PRAIRIE (Yaak River Valley)
An old turn of the century name for the meadow area located on the south side of the Yaak River, off the South Fork Road, behind the Yaak Mercantile.
JOHNSON ROCK (Yaak River Valley)
A local name given to the large rock outcrop located just west of the Pete Creek Campgrounds, on the north side of the Yaak River. A man named Johnson was found dead along the old Yaak River Trail in 1918 at this outcrop by Forest Service packer. His body was taken across the river and buried.
JULY CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
Located in the Callahan Creek drainage, was originally named in 1890 as Fourth of July Creek by prospectors.
KEELER CREEK and KEELER MEADOWS (Yaak River Valley)
An early name for Windy Creek, in the Yaak Valley, and the grassy meadows around Lake Okaga. Named for Bill Keeler who prospected in the area between 1876 and the mid-1880s.
KEELER CREEK and KEELER MOUNTAIN (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for an early crusty prospector, William “Bill” Keeler in 1891. Keeler was an original “California 49er” who moved north during the Wildhorse Gold Rush in 1864. Later settled in the Troy area, prospecting heavily on Grouse Mountain from 1888 until 1898 until when he moved north once again to Alaska and the Klondike Gold Rush of 98'. Reportedly hung the following year for an some infraction of the law in Alaska.
KEELER CREEK, WEST FORK (Bull Lake Valley)
Was known as the North Fork of Keeler Creek on 1917 Forest Service maps.
KEELER CREEK, NORTH FORK (Bull Lake Valley)
Was known as Grouse Creek in 1917.
KELSEY CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for Sarah Kelsey in 1911, an early homesteader.
KETRIDGE CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
An early name for Shine Creek. Named for J.C. Ketridge, an early 1908-1915 Forest Service surveyor. Shown on 1917 Forest Service survey maps.
KETTLE SPRINGS (Yaak River Valley)
Hallie Helmer named the springs, just off the Mt. Henry trail on the south side of the mountain. Named after an old kettle that was found hanging in a tree above the springs.
KEYSTONE MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
When gold had been discovered in 1895, it was assumed that the discovery would be a keystone for the local mining industry.
KEYSTONE LODE CLAIM (Yaak River Valley)
A patented gold claim located above the old town of Sylvanite in 1896. In 1989 the Keystone Mining Company consolidated with the Goldflint Mining Company forming the Consolidated Keystone Mining Company.
KILBRENNAN CAMP GROUNDS (Yaak River Valley-Kilbrennan Lake)
Withdrawn from homesteading on March 7,1908 by the Kootenai National Forest. A small log cabin/barn, probably built in the 1890s, was used by the Forest Service for many years as a tool cache. Later a campground was built on the site. The road through Kilbrennan Camp Grounds was built in 1896 and known as the Troy-Sylvanite Wagon Road.
KILBRENNAN LAKE (Yaak River Valley - Kilbrennan Lake)
“Was so named, so old timers say, after the lake of the same name in Scotland. It was from the shore of Lake Kilbrennan that Mrs. Barrie Walker, formerly of the National Hotel in Kalispell, came to the west before the railroad came, and it was in honor of her home in Scotland, that her western friends named that lake.” (The Troy Ranger, June 21, 1934)
KOO KOO CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named by Northern Pacific Surveyors who were lost in the 1880s while working.
KOOT CREEK (Kootenai Falls)
Located at the Kootenai Falls, originally called Box Car Creek, later Falls Creek and finally Koot Creek in about 1924.
KOOTENAI RIVER
Named for the Kootenai Indian Tribe who lived along its shores. Between c.1862 and c.1890 spelled Kootenay and generally spelled Kootenai after 1891. Also known as Flatbow River and McGillveray's River.
KOOTENAI SIDING (Kootenai Falls)
A small settlement developed along a side track of the Great Northern Railroad at Kootenai Falls in 1892. The Kootenai Falls Post Office was commissioned (1896-1899) but one was never opened. The settlement housed a section crew, with a railroad boarding house, depot, water tower, a few small houses and a school.
LAFOE MOUNTAIN (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for Lewis LaFoe, an early 1913 Lake Creek homesteader .
LAKE CITY (Troy, Montana)
(1891-1893) A settlement at the mouth of Lake Creek and located on the Spokane & Kootenai Placer Claim, also called Lake Creek City. A boom town when the construction crews building the Great Northern R.R. settled in the town. When the crews moved on, the town was sold and renamed Troy. The end came when the G.N.R.R. built a division point a mile to the west establishing a new town of West Troy.
LAKE CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
Named because it drains out of Bull Lake. Also known as Heryakaha Creek by the Kootenai Indians.
LAKE CREEK (Yaak River Valley - Kilbrennan Lake)
A 1917 name for Feeder Creek.
LAKE CREEK SCHOOL HOUSE (Bull Lake Valley)
The Lake Creek School was built in c.1911 as a part of the Fall Creek School District. It was suppose to have been located near the Lake Creek and Chase Cut Off Road junction. However, rumors persist that the school was built in the wrong location and that the building later became the Grange Hall. The school operated until about c.1920.
LANG CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named by Fritz Lang, an early miner at Sylvanite, for his son George. George Lang was an early homesteader and worked for 25 years as a lookout on Mt. Henry.
LAP CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named by Les Vinal for two old trappers by the names of Law and Plomert. The first two letters in Law (La), and the first letter from Plomert (P) were taken to name the creek.
LAST CHANCE ADMINISTRATION SITE (Yaak River Valley)
From 1908 thru 1950's an area south of the picnic area in the Yaak River Campgrounds near the mouth of the Yaak River, was considered for future Forest Service development as an administrative site. The Last Chance Ranger Station was proposed and surveyed but was never built.
LEMLEYBURG CAMP (Yaak River Valley)
When gold was discovered in the Yaak Valley on Friday Hill in 1894, the boom tent camp that became established at the mouth of Fourth of July Creek was named Lemleyburg. The camp was named for Bill Lemley and Peter Burg who discovered the gold. The name was short lived however, as the camp began constructing log homes and businesses, and the growing town changed the name to Sylvanite.
LENIA (Kootenai River - State Line)
Generally, the name of the area across the Kootenai River from Leonia.
LEONIA and LEONIA SIDING (Kootenai River - State Line)
A Great Northern railroad siding located at the mouth of Boulder Creek in Idaho in 1892. A small settlement developed at the siding in 1894. The size of the settlement grew when it became a rail head for supplies and food for the mining town of Sylvanite. Flooding of the Boulder Creek in 1897 destroyed the settlement and the Great Northern moved the siding to its present location on the Montana - Idaho state line. Rumors say that the old settlement was nothing more than a memory by the late 1940s. Reportedly named for a camp follower in 1892.
LICK MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
Named by a survey party for the many deer licks in the area.
LIGHTNING CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
This was an 1890 name for what is known today as Ross Creek. For a short time in 1887-1888 it was known as Deadman Creek.
LIME BUTTE (Bull Lake Valley - Keeler Creek)
Named after a lime deposit located on this small butte.
LIME CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for a lime formation found in the creek.
LONG MEADOW ADMINISTRATION SITE (Yaak River Valley)
Withdrawn from homesteading by the Kootenai National Forest on February 14, 1913, served as a tent camp by the Forest Service during the summer to house fire fighters. Functioned as a seasonal guard station. Now the site of the Whitetail Campgrounds.
LOWER FORD (Yaak River Valley)
Named by homesteaders to distinguish between two fords across the Yaak River (Upper and Lower Fords). This crossing is located across the Yaak River just east of the Yaak Community Hall near the mouth of Vinal Creek. The original road connecting the two fords was once located on the eastern bank of the Yaak River.
LUCKY GULCH and LUCKY POINT (Yaak River Valley)
Named by J. K. “Pink” Dwinille in 1929. He was lucky in keeping a bad fire in control there.
LYNX CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
In 1917, Jill Creek up the North Fork of Callahan Creek was known as Lynx Creek.
LYNX CREEK (General Troy Area - O'Brien Creek)
Named for the Canadian Lynx which were often seen and trapped in the drainage, which drains into O'Brien Creek.
MARMOT MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
Massive areas of talus rock outcrops on the sides and top of the mountain inhabited by many Hoary Marmots.
MAX CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for an early East Fork settler, Jim McGary in 1930.
MEADOW CREEK (Bull Lake Valley - Keeler Creek)
A turn of the century name for the creek which drained out of Grouse Lake.
MEEKS CREEK (Kootenai River - State Line)
Now an unnamed creek, located approximately 1 mile upstream from Leonia on the south side of the Kootenai River (T33N, R34W, Section 29). Also known as Bellyache Draw by the Kootenai Indians after a few members of the tribe died of a stomach sickness in the general area. Interestingly enough, Meeks Creek draws its name from Henry Meeks, who's three sons were accidentally poisoned and died from contaminated food, and were buried in unmarked graves at the Boulder City Cemetery. The two incidents may be one in the same and suggests that the Meeks family may have been Kootenai Indians.
McCONNELL MOUNTAIN (Bull Lake Valley - Iron Creek)
Named for Albert C. McConnell in 1905, an early homesteader at the base of the mountain.
McCORMICK CREEK (Kootenai River - Leonia)
The name once used for a creek that drains into the Kootenai River near Leonia, now called Rock Creek.
McGILLVERAY'S RIVER (Kootenai River)
An early name (c.1808 to c.1860) for the Kootenai River. Named for William McGillivary , the head of the North West Company.
MOUNT McGINTY (General Troy Area - Alvord Lake)
A now unnamed small mountain near the center of Section 31, T32N, R33W, and about a half mile east of Alvord Lake. Name found in local newspapers in 1916.
MILNOR LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)
Named in 1905, for William Milnor, an early 1890s settler who homesteaded the land around the lake. At the time Milnor settled on the land, the lake was called Baker Lake.
MOUCHE LAKE (Yaak River Valley)
An early name for Vinal lake, rumored to mean deer in Kootenai Indian language.
MURPHY MOUNTAIN and MURPHY GREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for Patrick Murphy who died in a hunting accident in 1896. Murphy Creek is shown on some 1917 Plat Maps and Murphy Gulch is shown on a c.1928 Kootenai National Forest map. It is the only major drainage shown in Section 18, T33N, R33W which drains into the Yaak River and now unnamed. Murphy was buried next to the old Leonia-Sylvanite Trail where it crossed Murphy Creek which is now under the Yaak River Road, Highway 508.
MYRTLE LODE CLAIM (Yaak River Valley)
A patented claim located north of Crawford Creek, discovered in 1895.
NASH FLAT (Yaak River Valley)
Local name for a section of flat ground located 1/2 mile east of Boyd Cemetery. Named for a Anna Nash a homesteader who had a homestead there in 1915.
NEWTON MOUNTAIN and NEWTON GULCH (Yaak River Valley)
Named for E.W. Newton, a homesteader at the base of the mountain. Named in 1897 when a proposed road from Bonners Ferry to Sylvanite was to go through his property. The road was never built but the Bonners Ferry-Moyie-Sylvanite Trail had been built over the mountain in 1893.
NOGGLE CREEK (Bull Lake)
Name found on an early 1897 Montana Map.
NORTHWEST PEAK (Yaak River Valley)
A prominent and the highest peak in northwestern corner of Montana. A lookout was built in 1929 which was a prototype for the L-4 tower.