Names matter. In the 19th-century American frontier, a name was basically a neon sign for a place that might just be three tents and a very stressed-out mule. People think names of old west towns were all chosen for epic, sweeping reasons. They weren't. Honestly, most of them were accidents, jokes, or the result of a tired postal clerk in Washington D.C. getting annoyed with paperwork.
Take a look at Tombstone, Arizona. Ed Schieffelin was told he’d only find his tombstone in those hills. He found silver instead. He kept the name out of spite. That’s the vibe of the West. It wasn't "strategic branding." It was grit mixed with a weird sense of humor.
The Postal Service Bureaucracy Behind Names of Old West Towns
You’ve gotta understand the Post Office Department. Back then, they were the ultimate gatekeepers of existence. If your mining camp didn't have a post office, you basically didn't exist on a map. But there was a catch: the name had to be short, easy to spell, and—this is the big one—totally unique within the state.
This led to some frantic creativity. When a group of settlers in Texas couldn't agree on a name, they looked at a tin of "Damon and Pythias" brand tobacco. They shortened it. Now we have Damon, Texas. It wasn't deep. It was just what was on the table at the time.
The feds actually hated long names. They started hacking them down. If a town wanted to be "The Springs of San Pedro," the Post Office would bark back and tell them to just pick "San Pedro" or "Springs." This bureaucratic trimming is why so many names of old west towns sound clipped and punchy today. It wasn't an aesthetic choice; it was a federal mandate to save ink and space on sorting cubbies.
Sometimes, the name wasn't even what the locals wanted. Take the case of Nameless, Texas. The story goes that the residents submitted six different names to the postal authorities, and all of them were rejected for being too common. Frustrated, they wrote back, "Then let the place be nameless." The Post Office took them literally.
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Why Mining and Geology Dictated Everything
Mining towns were the ultimate "get rich or get out" settlements. Their names reflect that desperation. You see names like Eureka (I found it!) or Bonanza (a gold mine, literally). But you also see the darker side. Deadwood wasn't named to sound cool for a TV show; it was named after the literal dead timber found in the gulch when gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1875.
Geology was the primary naming engine.
- Red Rock - Self-explanatory.
- Granite - Found in Colorado, named for the rock they were digging through.
- Galena - Named after the lead ore they were actually looking for.
It's sorta funny how literal they were. They weren't trying to be poetic. They were trying to tell people what to look for when they got off the stagecoach. If you were heading to Copperopolis, California, you knew exactly what the local economy was built on. No surprises.
The Influence of Railroad Tycoons
The Iron Horse changed the map faster than any gold rush. When the Union Pacific or the Central Pacific laid tracks, they didn't care about local history. They cared about their investors. This is why so many names of old west towns sound like East Coast law firms.
Durango, Colorado, was founded by William Palmer. He didn't name it after a local legend. He named it after Durango, Mexico, because he thought it sounded "distinguished." Many towns were named after railroad presidents, surveyors, or even their daughters. Rawlins, Wyoming, is named after John Aaron Rawlins, a General who once expressed a desire for a drink of cool water from a spring there. One drink of water, and you get a town named after you. That’s the frontier for you.
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Railroad towns often followed an alphabetical naming scheme to keep things organized for the conductors. In some stretches of the Midwest and West, you can literally follow the alphabet as you ride the rails. It’s a very "corporate" way to settle a wilderness. It lacks the soul of the mining camps, but it’s the reason why names like Ames, Boone, and Carroll exist in neat little rows.
The Weird and the Wonderful: Names Born of Spite
There’s a town in Oregon called Tightwad. Well, actually, that’s Missouri. But the point stands. Names often came from local beefs. Rough and Ready, California, was named by a group of miners who had served under Zachary "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor. They actually seceded from the Union for a few months in 1850 because they didn't want to pay a new mining tax. They eventually came back because they wanted to celebrate the Fourth of July properly.
Then you have Show Low, Arizona. This is one of my favorites. Two guys, Corydon Cooley and Marion Clark, decided the ranch wasn't big enough for both of them. They played a game of "Seven Up." The rule was "show low" and you win. Cooley turned up the deuce of clubs. He won. The town got the name. It’s a literal tribute to a card game.
What Most People Get Wrong About Ghost Towns
When people think of "Ghost Towns," they imagine a town that died because of a shootout or a curse. Usually, it was just the water running out. Or the silver vein "pinching out." When the money stopped, the name stopped mattering.
Bodie, California, is the gold standard here. It was named after W.S. Bodey, who discovered gold there in 1859. He died in a blizzard shortly after. The town eventually misspelled his name. Even in death, you couldn't get a break on the frontier. The "y" became an "ie" because the locals thought it looked better on a sign.
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The decline of these towns is a lesson in sustainability. A name like Silver City sounds permanent. But without a constant influx of capital and resources, those names just become markers on a tombstone. Many names were recycled. A town would "die," and the name would be poached by a settlement ten miles down the road that had a better well.
The Language Barrier: Corrupted Spanish and Indigenous Words
A lot of the "Old West" was actually the "Old North" of Mexico. The names reflect this, but often through a very thick English-speaking filter.
- Picketwire is the cowboy version of the Purgatoire River (El Río de las Ánimas Perdidas en Purgatorio).
- Wichita comes from the Wichita people, but the way we say it now is a far cry from the original pronunciation.
This linguistic blending created a unique American dialect. We took Spanish words, chewed them up, and spat them out as something new. Los Angeles stayed Los Angeles, but smaller places weren't so lucky. Yerba Buena became San Francisco because the Americans wanted something that sounded more "official" for a port city.
Authenticating Your Research on Western Towns
If you're looking into names of old west towns for a book or a trip, don't trust the first thing you read on a tourist plaque. Those plaques are often written to sell T-shirts. You have to look at the National Archives or the records of the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
The Board was created in 1890 specifically because the naming situation in the West was a total mess. People were naming things whatever they wanted, and the maps were becoming unusable. They were the ones who finally stepped in and said, "No, you cannot have four different 'Dry Creeks' in the same county."
Nuance is key. Some names, like Hell on Wheels, weren't specific towns but descriptions of the moving camps that followed the railroad. These weren't permanent locations; they were mobile dens of vice. Understanding the difference between a "paper town" (platted but never built) and a "boomtown" (built overnight) is crucial for historical accuracy.
Actionable Steps for Exploring Historic Western Names
- Check the Post Office Records: If you want to know when a town actually became "real," look for the date its first postmaster was appointed. That is the town's true birth certificate.
- Cross-Reference Sanborn Maps: These were fire insurance maps created in the late 19th century. They show every building, its material, and often the "unofficial" names of districts within a town.
- Visit the Local Cemetery: The names on the headstones often match the names of the streets. It’s the fastest way to see who actually ran the place versus who just owned the land.
- Analyze Topography: Look at the land around the town. If a place is called Three Forks, find the rivers. If you can't find them, the town might have been a "booster" project—a fake town created by land speculators to trick people into buying property.
The American West was a place of rapid expansion and even faster failure. The names that survived are the ones that had either a railroad connection or a reliable source of water. The rest? They’re just whispers in the sagebrush, footnotes in a dusty ledger in D.C. If you're traveling through places like Nevada or Wyoming today, look for the exits that don't seem to lead anywhere. Usually, there's a story—and a weirdly specific name—waiting at the end of that dirt road.