For most people, the words "Swampoodle" and "Gum Stump" bear little meaning.

But those who have read the newly published An Historical Gazetteer of Butler County can link those words to the local landscape.

The name Swampoodle was coined to describe part of Harmony, explained Glee McKnight of Franklin Township, who co-authored the geographic dictionary with Luanne Eisler, genealogist at the Butler Library.

As part of the gazetteer, Cartographer Janet Smith, now a professor at Shippensburg (Pa.) University, created a map for each of the county's townships containing new and forgotten locations.

Named in the 1870s, Swampoodle is one such forgotten site. Its name identified a residential part of town where a prospector allegedly bemoaned, "I swamped my boodle there."

Another such site is Gum Stump — renamed after a gum tree for which the town was previously named was felled.

Like many municipalities, Gum Stump was renamed yet again, this time to Grant City to honor Ulysses S. Grant, a Civil War general and 18th president of the United States.

Such naming after military and political figures became common, Eisler said, often replacing earlier names tied to historic events and settlers.

"Often a named changed when the town was incorporated," McKnight added, noting previous names for Chicora included Lasher's Mill, Barnhart's Mills and Millerstown. That chronology of names conveys a history of mill proprietors, she noted.

Smith, a professor at Slippery Rock University when the project began, continued making the maps despite her move to Shippensburg halfway through the project. Watching the histories unfold served as motivation, she said.

"Space changes over time, and I think that's why (the gazetteer) is a really valuable book."

"The landscape changes. Our cultural landscape changes, and that's very interesting."

As well as a map and summary of each of the county's 33 townships, the gazetteer contains photographs and more than 200 pages of placename entries, which identify geographic locations and relay anecdotes and facts.

The entries were compiled after Eisler and McKnight compared their lists of unknown places brought to their attention by others or discovered over time during genealogical research.

Although the pair decided to combine their lists into a publication, the effort expanded over a five-year period.

"We had no idea it was going to be anything like this," Eisler said of a "booklet" projected to take six months.

"We kept adding," McKnight agreed.

After poring through original courthouse records, driving the back roads and interviewing people in the field, the pair produced a dense publication containing more than 2,000 footnotes.

"We did meet so many interesting people, and they told us these stories," Eisler said.

"They would tell us things that weren't in the history books."

Although Eisler works at the Butler Library, she conducted her research during off hours. With time also donated by McKnight and Smith, the book's copyright was awarded to the library so book sale proceeds could aid the facility.

Eisler and McKnight were unable to estimate hours spent on the gazetteer, but Smith said she documented 1,000 hours before losing count.

"I don't begrudge that at all," she noted. "It was a great project, and I was really delighted to do it."

With a similar tone of generosity, Eisler and McKnight said with so many sites yet unexplored, they anticipate updating the book, especially after reader input.

But for now, 373 pages is enough.

"We had to have a cutoff,"McKnight said.

The hardcover book, printed by Mechling Bookbindery in Chicora, is being sold at the library for $45. A book signing is also set at the library from 10 a.m. to noon April 21.