The community was named after Joseph G. Legrand [1861-1923], a French-born engineer who designed and supervised the construction of all of the bridges on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Legrand emigrated to Canada in 1891. Between 1893 and 1903 he worked successively as a draftsman, checker, and designer of bridge work and in 1903 was appointed assistant chief engineer of the predecessor firm that became the Montreal Locomotive Works. He joined the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1906, at age 45, and assumed responsibilty for designing and overseeing the building of all the bridges on the new railway, thus becoming one of its senior managers.

Fourteen miles west of McBride, Legrand became a farming community. In 1921 six farmers lived there. The Legrand post office was open from August 1924 to June 1925, under postmaster Mrs. Janetta Somerville.

Knole of Sevenoaks in Kent, England, was once the palace of the archbishops of Canterbury.

The name of this station was probably selected from the list of names that Josiah Wedgewood submitted to Grand Trunk Railway president Charles Melville Hays. William Pittman Hinton, general passenger agent of the Grand Trunk, had asked Wedgewood (of Wedgewood China fame) to submit a list of names suitable for the stations on the new railway line; consequently many station names on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway have a connection to England.

At present there are no highways in the country. However, there are a few good trails. These run from Henningville up the McLennan Valley and over the Albreda summit to the Canoe and North Thompson Rivers: from Knole (Mile 112) up the Goat River and thence to Barkerville, a distance of eighty miles: and from Bear River to Fort George. The Forest Branch of the Department of Lands are building a few trails up a number of streams, notably the Rau Shuswap and Beaver Rivers.

— Walker, South Fork of Fraser River, 1914

In 1916 English author Henry Rider Haggard [1856–1925] travelled through the area on the GTPR. He was so impressed with the scenery and wrote very glowingly about it that the mountain above Crescent Spur was named Mount Rider and the glacier on the mountain was called Haggard Glacier.

The rail stop at Knole is said to have been renamed Rider in his honour, but the name Rider was already in use by 1911.

The station might recall Stuart Kidd (1883–1957), manager of Brazeau Trading Company in Nordegg (for whom Mount Kidd in Alberta was named in 1904), or perhaps his brother John Alfred (Fred) Kidd. See comments.

Henningville (Mile 49), Tête Jaune area
Valemount & Area Museum

The company of Palmer Brother and Henning were construction contractors during the construction of the Canadian Northern Pacific Railway through the Yellowhead Pass and south down the Canoe River. Palmer Brother and Henning had a siding on the Grand Trunk Pacific line at Mile 49 (measured from the Alberta border), near Tête Jaune Cache, to service their camps.

In the years after 1912, Henningville grew into a small hamlet with a Canadian Northern Pacific warehouse and some dozen other buildings, including the Austin Brothers store, Cox’s post office, and a pool hall. The name Henningville was rarely used, because the railroaders all called the location “49.”

In the Tête Jaune Cache area, on the Grand Trunk Pacific, people lived in several communities: Mile 53, where the Siems-Carey and the Foley, Welsh and Stewart wharves bordered the Fraser River, Mile 52, where the new train station, Main Street and the red-light district were, Mile 51, where a ship-building yard had been set up to rebuild two sternwheelers, originally from Victoria, B.C., and Mile 49, later to be known as Henningville.

Tête Jaune Cache magistrate William A. Jowett noted in his diary in June, 1914: “To 49 for Henning’s surprise party on his return from being married with Bel and had a good time!”

The Henningville post office opened in 1913; in 1917 the name was changed to Tête Jaune Cache.

Established as a flag station on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway four
miles east of Penny.

No agent or local residents in 1918, according to Wrigley’s.

Although the Grand Trunk Pacific had built a station at Guilford, the community of Guilford evolved two miles west of the station. That location was where the river and the railroad tracks met, both being vital transportation links. The name was quite possibly chosen from the Josiah Wedgwood list of names. Guilford is the name of a village in the county of Surrey, England, which is now spelt Guildford.

— Olson, p. 92

Mr. and Mrs. Frank Wagner left for Edmonton, the community of Guilford lost its last resident and another ghost town was created. Everything has been shipped out of the once thriving sawmill village.

— Prince George Citizen, November 1956 (quoted in Olson)

According to the BC Geographical Names office, the name Guilford was suggested by Mr. Smithers (OBF 0047). Adopted in 1958. confirmed in 1983, and rescinded in 1984.

The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway station at Mile 117 (west of the Yellowhead Pass) was initially named “Rooney,” after W. J. Rooney, superintendent of construction in charge of the GTP Telegraph Service. Sometime between 1918 and 1925 the station was renamed “Goat River.”

Bohi’s listing says the station name “Goat River” was preceded by the names “Rooney” and “Brundell.”

The post office at Goat River Station operated from 1923 to 1945.