It all started with an extra cache, a gift for the FTF down at Porcupine Creek's old FS cabin (Bald Ridge Cache--GC8C88K). I am not sure this is the same cabin that was there in 1916, when western writer Mark Layton (pseudonym: actual name William Marshall Rush--wrote under both names) came west from West Virginia to stay with his brother-in-law and sister, Cash and Lilie Hurst. Cash (or Cassius) was the forest ranger in that neck of the woods; he influenced William Rush to follow the same vocational route. So started the chain of events that led Rush to the west coast and to writing about the West, its people, its animals. It all started at Porcupine Cabin.
Back to caching in particular: a young cache planter left behind a handmade FTF wooden nickel, a Cumberland Island pathtag, and a pill bottle labeled "Official Geocache." I made a promise in my log to place that receptable somewhere worthy--but time and circumstances have gotten away from me until today. The second to last day of 2021--the first entire year of living with often onerous lifestyle restrictions--is a good day to forget and to plant in a place that once housed a cache, again a rebirth (one of my recent favorites in cache planting).
I again digress: I am a summertime volunteer up at the Castle in White Sulphur Springs (yes, I may know a thing or two about the Castle cache) and give historical tours. One way to learn information is to listen to those veteran guides who are able to recite facts at the drop of a pin. Sometimes though (and probably should be always), I have learned to fact-check even the most experienced. From one guide, or docent, I learned that the Smith River Valley was named for the Smith brothers, John Martin and William, who had settled on the Middle Fork of the Musselshell and developed the Smith Brothers Corporation ranch. But then I looked, and if Internet sources are more accurate, it appears the Smith River and its valley are named after Robert Smith, Secretary of the Navy during the Jefferson administration. During their exploration, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had taken it upon themselves to name tributaries of the Missouri River after members of Jefferson's cabinet. I am not sure which tac the roadside sign takes (it's been down for repair for quite a while), but I do know the Smith River drains into the Missouri at Ulm (I once took my older son's place and drove one of the lucky permit holder's vehicles from Camp Baker to Ulm) and the second reasoning is legitimate.