blackfoot-valley

runs several miles through it. But since there is no conspicous separation between the valleys of Nevada Creek and the Blackfoot River in this area, it is often thought of and marked on maps as part of the Nevada Valley as far north as the vicinity of Ovando. This area was settled early as well. Probably the first non-Indian to do so was William Dilts sometime in the 1870s. Later, Andrew Wales and his family arrived, as well as Henry McElwain, as related by Andrew’ descendant, Eddy Wales. Andrew came in 1881 and almost immediately bought Dilts’ squatters’ rights. Andrew’s oldest son Edward thereupon gave up mining in the Beaverhead region and took up the so-called “Desert Claim,” renaming it with a neat PR flair, the Wales Brothers Park Ranch. Wales Creek was, of course, named after the family, and in similar fash- ion McElwain Creek a few miles to the south which bears the name of its first settler. According to a story Eddy Wales told me in 1997, the stream running between the McElwain and Wales Creek into the Blackfoot was a subject of an argument between the Wales bothers Edward and Tom over whether to give it “my name or your name.” They finally agreed on the perfect compromise: “Your Name Creek” - and so it is today. 128