What's in a name?

Carterville or Cartersville (depending on which state highway sign one sees) is an unincorporated community in Rosebud County, Montana, north of the Yellowstone River. A U.S. Post Office was established there in 1907 and remained in operation until it was discontinued in 1957. Cartersville also had a school for many years until students were bussed to Rosebud.

The community, and the road which runs north of the Yellowstone river from Forsyth to Rosebud, were named for Thomas H. Carter, a U.S. Senator from Montana who owned land in the area. Carter County was also named for him.

Thomas H. (Henry) Carter was born on October 30, 1854, in Junior Furnace, Ohio and died at 56 years of age on September 17, 1911, in Washington, D.C. Carter was a territorial delegate back when Montana was still a territory, not a state. Once Montana became a state, he went on to serve two terms as a U.S. Senator.

The child of Irish immigrants, Carter rose from a childhood spent on small farms in the Midwest to become one of the most successful and popular politicians in the early history of the state of Montana. He also made a name for himself within the national Republican Party, becoming, in 1892, the first Catholic to serve as Chairman of the Republican National Committee (1892-1896).

In between, he was a railroader, a school teacher and traveling salesman for a book publisher. After the premature death of his mother due to pneumonia, Carter moved two younger sisters and a brother to live with him in Iowa while his father worked in Kentucky. After many years of studying law, he passed the Nebraska bar exam.

In May of 1882, Thomas moved from Burlington, Iowa to live in Helena and begin a law career. He entered into a law partnership with John B. Clayton, and his first foray into politics was to get elected as the first Public Administrator for Lewis & Clark County in Helena.

In 1888 he was elected as a Territorial Delegate, for the Territory of Montana, to the U.S. Congress, where he served until November 7, 1889 when Montana was admitted to the Union. Carter was then elected as Montana's first Representative to Congress, where he served from 1889-1891.

He lost the next election and president Benjamin Harrison appointed Carter as the U.S. Commissioner of the General Land Office where he served from 1891-1892, at which time he was elected Chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Carter then ran and was elected U.S. Senator from Montana and served from 1895-1901. During that election, he faced Butte Copper King Democrat William Clark. With assistance of Marcus Daily, another Butte Copper King, Thomas Carter won the election, which initiated the famous "War of the Copper Kings."

Carter lost his next senatorial race, but was again elected in 1904 and served as one of Montana's U.S. Senators from 1905-1911. He did not run again and died in 1911 in Washington, D.C. and interred at the Mount Olivet Cemetery there.

The legacy of Thomas H. Carter includes a glacier and a mountain peak both in Glacier National Park, the town of Carter in Chouteau County, Cartersville in Rosebud County, and Carter County, Montana named in his honor in 1917.