Lincoln County Landmark Names S-T
SADDLE CREEK and SADDLE MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
The top of the mountain is in the shape of a saddle.
SAVAGE LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for William Savage an 1897 homesteader who settled on its northern shore. Between 1892 and 1897 was known as Van Dyke Lake.
SCHOOL HOUSE LAKE (Bull Lake Valley)
So named as the Fall Creek School House (1905-1937) was once located the shore line of the lake. Sometimes called, Fall Creek School House Lake.
SCREW CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named in 1914 for Elmer “Screw” Clay, who moved into the Yaak in 1910.
SEARS FLAT (General Troy Area - Kootenai River)
Name for a large flat bench on the north side of the Kootenai River across from the Yakt Railroad Siding. At one time, the original Yakt-Sylvanite Wagon Road passed through this flat. This old part of the road was later abandoned in favor of the East Side Road.
SEARS ROAD (Yaak River Valley)
Another name for the Yakt-Sylvanite Wagon Road which was begun in 1896 and not completed until c.1915. The road is shown on early 1917 Forest Service maps.
SEARS MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley - Kilbrennan Lake)
An early 1910-1920s name for a small butte (3235') located north of Kilbrennan Lake in the northwest corner of Section 20, T33N, R34W.
SEVENTEEN MILE CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
At the time thought to be 17 miles from the Yaak River to downtown Libby through this drainage. Named around 1894.
SEVENTEEN MILE SCHOOL HOUSE (Yaak River Valley)
Located on the James Barron Homestead, and sometimes referred to as the Barron School House. Actually it was the Sylvanite School House which was located on the Barron Homestead because the Barron children were its only pupils.
SHAGNASTY MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
Original name for Obermayer Mountain, the name was changed in 1931.
SHANNON LAKE and SHANNON FLATS (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for Emmett Shannon, an early 1920s homesteader.
SHEEPHERDER MTN. and SHEEPHERDER CK. (Yaak River Valley)
In the 1920s and 1930s was used as a part of a domestic sheep summer range which included the Seventeen Mile Creek drainage and the area burned over in the 1910 fire.
SKINNER LAKE (General Troy Area - O'Brien Creek)
A man made lake, named for William Skinner the Kilbrennan Lake homesteader, who constructed the lake to be used as a fish hatchery. However, he was unable to control the water level and the lake was never used as a hatchery.
SLEE LAKE (General Troy Area)
Named for homesteader R. L. Slee in 1917.
SLIM CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for Romeo Garrison in 1914, an early homesteader and trapper.
SMALL CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
Shown on a 1917 map but was previously known as Bob Creek.
SMOOT CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for Walt Smoot in 1911, early homesteader.
SNIPETOWN CAMP (Yaak River Valley)
A name given to a small mining tent camp that developed on the Idaho Placer Claim of 1891. It was an area located in the Yaak River Canyon below the Stonechest Grade north to Ferrel Creek. First settlement in the Yaak Valley. The camp once held a population of between 25 and 30 miners. Rumored to have once supported a small general store constructed out of logs. The name refers to “Sniping” or working a mineral claim without first filing on it. The camp was active between 1890 and 1895.
SNOW STORM MINE (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
Previously the Banner and Bangle Lode (also known as the B & B) claims filed on in 1893. In 1916 the Banner and Bangle Mining Company sold the holdings to the Consolidated Snow Storm Mining Company. Actively mined between 1916 and 1927, resulting in over 400,000 tons of ore being removed from the seven adits. Generally known as the Snowstorm Mine after 1917.
SOLO JOE CREEK (Yaak River Valley)
Named for a hermit, “Solo Joe” Perrault, who lived at the mouth of the creek for 25 years. He was a placer miner who died in 1929. Solo Joe was one of Troy's first barbers, working the trade there in 1894 and 1895.
SOUTH FORK SCHOOL (Yaak River Valley)
Built in 1919 on the Dewey Homestead and sometimes referred to as the Dewey School, was used until the current Yaak School building was constructed. Functioned as a school for half of the school year and half of the year, school was conducted in the Zimmerman School up river.
SPEED ISLAND (Yaak River Valley)
An island of approximately 15 acres located in the Yaak River about 1/2 mile below the East Fork junction. Named for Ray Speed in 1915, an early homesteader.
SPRUCE CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
In 1917, what is today called Drift Creek, was called Spruce Creek which drained into the southern end of Spruce Lake.
STANLEY PEAK and STANLEY CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for Foster Stanley, who was reported to be the first man to bring his family into the railroad town of Lake City in 1891. Homesteaded on the northern shore of Bull Lake in 1892, filing on the land in 1900.
STAR CREEK (Across from the Yaak River Campgrounds)
Named by early Boulder Creek prospectors in 1891.
STATION CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
An early name used for today's Camp Creek. This name may suggest that an early Great Northern Railroad horse feeding station of 1891-1892, may have been located along this creek. In 1891 and 1892, it took five days to transport supplies from Smead's Landing on the Clark Fork River to the railroad construction camp at Lake City. Feeding stations were set up at one day intervals to accommodate caring for the horse teams, wagons and men who drove them. A road petition of 1900 makes reference to an area nearby as the “Old Stage Ranch.”
STONECHEST GRADE (Yaak River Valley)
Named for James Stonechest, a stage and freight wagon driver in the 1890s, on the old Leonia-Sylvanite Wagon Road. Named applied to a massive rock outcrop which is visible today as you drive up the Yaak Valley, about a mile past the Pine Creek Road. In the 1890s, the road dropped down before reaching this outcrop, switch backing on a steep slope a couple of times before leveling out on a flat bench above the Yaak River, a trip not to be taken by the faint of heart. Also known as the Devil's Washborad.
STRATON POINT (Yaak River Valley)
A 1940s/1950s name for the point of land on the north side of the Yaak River about a mile upstream from the mouth of the South Fork of the Yaak River. Named for Straton family who purchased H. E. S. 402 in 1944.
STUDEBAKER DRAW (O‘Brien Creek))
Named after an abandoned Studebaker automobile found at the mouth of Larmie Creek in 1930.
SUMMIT LAKE (Bull Lake)
(see Bull Lake)
SURPRISE MINING DISTRICT (Yaak River Valley)
A mining district formed in 1890 that included the Yaak River Canyon or from the Kootenai River up to the Yaak Falls. The boundaries like most early mining districts, was fluid and overlapped other unorganized districts. This district also included claims up Boulder Creek on the Montana/Idaho State Line..
SWANSON CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
Named for Frank Swanson, an 1894 homesteader. Frank Swanson was born in 1863 in Iowa. Spent his early years in Kansas moving to Missoula in the 1880s, and Kalispell in 1890. Went to work for the Great Northern Railroad moving with the company to Troy in about 1893. Left the Great Northern and took up land where he worked as a rancher until his death in 1955.
SWEASEY CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
Named for Alfred Swesey an early 1890s prospector and later partner with George Moore in a freighting business in Troy.
SYLVANITE (Yaak River Valley)
The name of the gold mining town that developed in 1896 and 1897. Originally the miners believed that they had discovered Sylvanite, a rich silver/gold ore. When it turned out not to be Sylvanite, it was too late, the name of the town stuck. Sylvanite grew to 500-600 inhabitants in 1897, dwindling down to just a handful by 1898 when the mines closed. The town sat idle until 1910 when the mines reopened however before much work could be done, it was totally destroyed in the Wildfire of 1910. Today it represents the “down valley” residents. The Sylvanite post office was commissioned in 1896 and used until 1903. It was re-commissioned in 1910 and used until 1914.
SYLVANITE CEMETERY (Yaak River Valley)
The oldest cemetery in the Yaak Valley and located at the Sylvanite Rangers Station. Began in 1895 when a miner named Livermore drowned in the Yahk River while fishing. Suspect that the cemetery also the final resting place of at least two men and a woman of the evening who died with their boots on in a shoot out in a Sylvanite saloon in 1896 or 1897. Last burial (1910) was a Libby man named Anderson who drowned in the Yaak River just before the fire of 1910.
SYLVANITE RANGER STATION (Yaak River Valley)
A U.S. Forest Service administrative site and headquarters of the Yaak Ranger District. Began at Sylvanite in 1908 with the entire compound being over run by a wildfire in 1910, the compound was rebuilt in 1911. Consolidated in 1932 with the Troy Ranger District. The district boundaries extended from the Kootenai River to the boundaries of the Upper Ford Ranger District. Consolidated with the Upper Ford Ranger Station in 1942. Operated until consolidated and moved to Troy in 1987. Compound now used as the Sylvanite Work Center.
SYLVANITE SCHOOL HOUSE (Yaak River Valley)
Current home of the Sylvanite School District, built in 1953.
SYLVANITE TOWNSITE SCHOOL HOUSE (Yaak River Valley)
The first school erected in the Yaak River Valley was located inthe old town of Sylvanite in 1897. The school only operated for one year (1897/1898) before the town became a ghost town. The school was destroyed when the wildfire of 1910 burned the town to the ground. Reportedly located on the land homesteaded by Mary Keating (HES 844).
TALLMADGE CREEK (Bull Lake)
For a short time around 1917, Payne Creek was sometimes known by this name.
TAYLOR PEAK (Bull Lake Valley)
Probably named for F. M. Taylor who homesteaded on Lake Creek in c.1892.
TEPEE MOUNTAIN (Yaak River Valley)
In the early days, the Indians erected their tepees at what is now Tepee Springs, located at the base of the mountain.
TEPEE SPRINGS ADMINISTRATION SITE (Yaak River Valley)
The Tepee Springs Administration Site, at 84 acres, was withdrawn in 1908. By 1912 a building was located on the site and used by the Forest Service as a Guard Station.
THREE MILE CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
A drainage located in Callahan Creek as it is approximately three miles from Troy. Named by early prospectors in 1893.
THROOP LAKE (Kootenai River)
Named for L. E. Throop, an early 1920s Libby and Troy businessman. One of the first local industries was established adjacent to the lake in 1891, when E. J. Merrin moved in a sawmill to cut bridge timbers for the construction crews of the Great Northern Railway.
TILLOTSON CREEK (General Troy Area - Callahan Creek)
Callahan Creek in 1889 was known as Tillotson Creek. May have been named for either William or James Tillotson who homesteaded on the South Fork of Keeler Creek. Although neither were prospectors, they may have pioneered a trail over the mountains from Hope, Idaho coming down Callahan Creek to the Kootenai River.
TROY, MONTANA (1891-1893)
When the Great Northern Railroad grade crew left Lake City in 1892, the townsite was sold to William O'Brien. He in turn, platted a new town which was called Troy. The town took its name for a railroad siding between Lake Creek and Callahan Creek. The siding was named by a railroad surveyor, E. L. Preston, who took a liking to the son of a family in Bonners Ferry where he was boarding, Troy Morrow. The town was short lived with most of the town moving to West Troy after the G.N.R.R. established a division point there.
TROY RANGER STATION (General Troy Area)
Operated as a U.S. Forest Service administrative site and headquarters for the Troy Ranger District. Organized in 1907 and located on the north side of the Kootenai River approximately one and a half miles up river from the current Highway 2 concrete bridge across the Kootenai River. Consolidated with the Yaak Ranger District in 1932. The name Troy Ranger Station and Ranger District replaced the Cabinet Ranger District and moved into the Cabinet Ranger Station compound on the newly constructed section of Highway 2. The original Troy R.S. headquarters was abandoned. Since 1932, the Troy Ranger Station was located across from the Troy Airport until 1987 when it was consolidated with the Yaak Ranger District forming the Three Rivers Ranger District. After 1987, the Troy Ranger Station was expanded to accommodate the demands of the new ranger district.
TWIN CREEK (Bull Lake Valley)
Shown as Porcupine Creek in the late 1890s.
TWIN MEADOWS (Yaak River Valley)
A early name given to the large meadows extending from Spread Creek northward to the Whitetail Campgrounds.
TWO JACK CROSSING (Yaak River Valley)
A bridge located on the Yaak River just north with its junction with Vinal Creek. Jack Cross lived on the west side of the river and Jack West and his son lived on the east side. The crossing was named for Jack West and his son Jack West Junior.