Elkton and its two elk-name stories

Elkton’s village website says blacksmith W. J. McGillivray founded the community in 1886 and built its first house. Its naming story says he killed a large elk after it became tangled in his wife’s clothesline.

The village’s adopted master plan preserves a different version. It says the place was first called Oliver Center and that legend connected the new name to an elk killed in a nearby marsh that supposedly “weighed a ton.” Both are official local accounts, but they cannot both be the literal origin story.

What the sources agree on is the basic timeline. Elkton applied for a post office in 1886 and incorporated as a village in 1897. The surrounding Oliver Township had separated from Lake Township in 1879 and was named for early settler John Oliver.

The safest way to tell the name story is as folklore with competing versions, not settled fact. Either way, an elk is at the center of the explanation the village has chosen to keep.