Do you know of Big Otter ???

This page is an orphan - a placeholder until we can discover more about Big Otter. When we encounter a name that is new to us, we add it to our Gazetteer with the hope that we'll discover more information in the future. Such is the case with Big Otter.

Our sources for Big Otter (see Mentions and References below) indicate that it was a community with a post office by the same name. Unfortunately our sources aren't clear about the location of Big Otter other than they indicate that Big Otter would be found somewhere in Clay County, West Virginia.

From the Blevins / Hellbock List: The post office opened  in 1874 and closed  in 1979.

This entry could have originated in error. It might be that a source had a misprint, was simply wrong or we made a transcription error while referencing it. Many of the documents we reference are from the 1800s and the early 1900s, with some easier to read than others.

Part of the difficulty in identifying whether a name is a post office or a community lies with how Post Offices were named. We've prepared an article with our understanding of how post offices were named: Naming of Post Offices.

Miscellaneous References and Mentions for Big Otter ...

We've created the following list to keep track of the sources that proved useful in adding to our knowledge about Big Otter:

Found in a comprehensive list of Post Offices that was created by Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock.<1>

Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide (1895)
Published by Rand McNally & Co.

A note taken from the Shipper's Guide for Big Otter - Services available: had a Post Office, no Railroad mentioned

Rand McNally Map of West Virginia (1911)
Published by Rand McNally & Co.

The FIPS database contains an entry for Big Otter.

Referenced FIPS Records ...

FIPS Code: 54/07396   (Place Name: Big Otter)

County: Clay     (FIPS State/County: 54/015)

Class: U8

Identifies a populated place (in this case, Big Otter) located wholly or substantially outside the boundaries of an incorporated place or CDP (Census Designated Place) but whose name has not been verified as authoritative by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

More Orphans in  Clay County ...

Can you help?

As we explained above, when we encounter a name that might be a community or a post office we add it to our Gazetteer. If we have little information to go with the name, we call them Orphans. Below are Orphans that we believe to be located in Clay County.