On an 1884 Rand McNally map, the Swan River and Swan Lake are referred to as the Sweatinghouse River and the Sweatinghouse Lake. However, by 1895, most maps had adopted Swan, a name apparently proposed by early English hunters in the area and acknowledged by the locals, according to Ken Wolf’s 1980 Montana Magazine article “History of the Swan Valley.” Henry Coale quoted a local 1914 report that "Twenty years ago Trumpeter Swans were common in Montana, and used regularly to winter here, but are now on the verge of extinction." He indicated that the Kootenai Indians generally reported that swans bred in the Flathead Valley up to the first immigration of whites in 1886... Coale described swans nesting historically at Lake Rodgers, at Swan Lake, and on the east side of Flathead Lake, and on the lakes which drain Clearwater, a branch of the Big Blackfoot River.