A Place-Name Fact-Check for Clinton, Montana

I sometimes lose track of what I've blogged about and what I had intended to blog about but didn't. So, in case I haven't mentioned it before, I suspect that Don Bert Omundson's 1961 thesis "Study of place names in Missoula County, Montana" is the source of all later references to Betters' Station and some other historical facts about Clinton, Montana and its previous names.

I have reached a point in my research where I can now do a fact-check on most of the information Omundson included about Clinton in his thesis. To try to keep this manageable for me and hopefully easier for you, my reader, to follow, I am going to take this paragraph by paragraph.

First Paragraph

Clinton

T12N R17W. Small community 15 miles e. of Missoula on the N.P.R.R. and C.M. & St.P. Named in November, 1889, after Henry Clinton. It is undecided whether Clinton was a railroad man or a lumberman. (Mrs. Nettle, Albert Partoll)

The date appears to be correct. An article in the November 27, 1889 issue of the Anaconda Standard announced, "The Northern Pacific has made the following changes in the names of stations on its Rocky Mountain division: Mullen to Blossburg and Blossburg to Clinton" (see below).

I have been unable to confirm that Clinton was named after Henry Clinton. As of this writing, there are numerous websites (including Wikipedia) that claim the unincorporated town of Clinton was named after General Sir Henry Clinton. I find that highly unlikely. The Clinton Elementary School website has a more reasonable explanation. It states, "In 1889 the town of Clinton was officially named after Henry Clinton, a supervisor of the Charcoal Mine located in Missoula." The source they provide for this information is the June 2017 issue of the Clinton community newsletter. I believe Guy Howlett was the researcher and author of anything shared about the history of Clinton in that newsletter. I trust Guy's sources and research more than I trust Wikipedia.

Even more likely, based on the way the railroads operated in those days, is the explanation given in the 2009 Montana Historical Society book, "Montana Place Names from Alzada to Zortman" (companion website here). It states that the town was named for C. L. Clinton, an official of the Northern Pacific Railroad. I don't know their source, but I suspect it was the 1932 Missoulian article I wrote about in this post.

The real answer might be found in the Northern Pacific Railway Company records archived at the Minnesota Historical Society and the Mansfield Library at the University of Montana.

The collection at the Minnesota Historical Society includes:

• History of names of cities and towns on the Northern Pacific system
• Origins of names of stations and townsites

The collection at the Mansfield Library includes:

• Historical Origins of Station Names in North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho
• Location of Stations, Names and Facilities

An opportunity arose for me to travel to Missoula this Friday, but the archives at the Mansfield Library will unfortunately be closed that day.

Second Paragraph

(1) Originally Better's [sic] Station on the Mullan Road, a stage station which received its name from Austin Betters, who homesteaded the townsite. Betters, the father of the informant, came to this country in 1881. The stage station was established in 1883. (Mrs. Nettle)

As I noted in a recent post, Austin did buy property in 1883 that could have been a stage station, but I have yet to come across any proof that the town, or even a stage station in the area, was called Betters' Station. It doesn't mean that Betters' Station didn't exist. I just haven't been able to find any corroborating evidence, and as I posited in a post from 2015, it seems more and more likely that my great-grandaunt Fannie Nettle, who would have been around 90 at the time Omundson interviewed her, confused Baker's Station with Betters' Station.

Third Paragraph

(2) The N.P.R.R. originally called this settlement Wallace in the 1880's, but the name was not accepted by the p.o. (Lukens)

I would think that railroad timetables with listings of stations would be easy to find, but I have not found one for the NPRR in 1883 that lists Wallace Station. My assumption is that Wallace Station was christened by the time the transcontinental railroad was completed, but I have yet to find any sort of official announcement from the NPRR in the newspapers. The NPRR collections mentioned earlier may hold the definitive answer, but I think this is one example where the place already had a name before the railroad came through.

The Wallace Mining District was formed on August 2, 1878. On May 7, 1883, the Wallace post office was established. It was located in the mining camp two miles up Wallace Gulch. The golden spike for the NPRR was driven on September 8, 1883. 

The earliest reference I found to Wallace Station in newspaper articles was in November 1884. A petition before the Missoula County Commissioners on December 1, 1884 referenced the "Town of Wallace." I found numerous references to Wallace and Wallace Station in later newspaper articles.

Wallace Station is also distinctly noted on this 1885 plat map:

I haven't found any corroborating evidence that the Post Office Department did not accept the name. The Wallace post office operated for five years before its name was changed. Whether that change was precipitated by the post office or, as some believe, the railroad, I do believe they were trying to avoid confusion with Wallace, Idaho.

Fourth Paragraph

(3) The descriptive name, Pine Grove, superceded [sic] the locally accepted Better's [sic] Station for a short time, probably two or three years. (Mrs. Nettle)

Based on accounts of Hellgate Canyon in the 1880s, I agree that Pine Grove was likely a very relevant and descriptive name, but I have not found that name used in any newspapers or written histories of the area. The only place I have seen that name used is in the 1883 deed wherein Austin Better and Charles Harris purchased Pine Grove Place, which included the Pine Grove House. As noted in a previous post, The Pine Grove House was the home of the Pineland post office, and I have found other evidence that this area was called "Pineland" for a time. I am planning a separate post on that.

As stated before, I have yet to find any period evidence that Betters' Station was "the locally accepted" name for the area for any length of time.

Fifth Paragraph

(4) Blossberg was adopted in 1888 or 1889, but was soon abandoned when it was discovered that the p.o. was being confused with another town of the same name in the vicinity of Butte. (Mrs. Nettle)

The Helena Independent reported in their June 19, 1889 issue, "The name of Wallace, on the Rocky Mountain division of the Northern Pacific, has been changed to Blossburg to conform with the new name given by the post office department."

I have not found any evidence that the Post Office Department renamed the Wallace post office "Blossburg" and I don't know why they would when they already had another post office in an adjacent county called Blossburg. That post office had been called Blossburg since June 14, 1886, when its name changed from Barcon. See announcement from the June 14, 1886 issue of the Post Office Department's Daily Bulletin of Orders Affecting the Postal Service below:

I don't know what to make of this. Did the Post Office Department accidentally approve two Blossburgs in the same state, 86 miles apart? Did the NPRR get some bad information about the renaming of the Wallace post office? Did the Helena Independent simply misreport it?

Whatever the case, five months after the Helena Independent reported on the change from Wallace to Blossburg, the Anconda Standard reported that the name had been changed to Clinton (see clipping at the top of this post).

So there you have it. I have some more research to do to see if I can confirm the origins of NPRR station names and why they were changed.