Note 54 — Chapter XXIV · LA BARGE AGAIN IN OPPOSITION.
Reading edition
What is now the town of Deer Lodge, Mont., was first named La Barge City, and was so known for about two years. The name was given by two friends of Captain La Barge, John S. Pemberton of St. Louis and Leon Quesnelle, a descendant of the Quesnelle who seems to have been the first permanent settler at Bellevue, Neb. Quesnelle had been in the Deer Lodge Valley for some time, and had a ranch near where the town was afterward built. Two years later the town site was organized by James Stuart and others, surveyed and laid out by W. W. De Lacy, and rechristened Deer Lodge. The original town site plot of La Barge City is in possession of the Montana Historical Society.