Manteca’s name is not a mistake.

At least that is the premise of a May 11, 1915 newspaper article printed in the Manteca Bulletin.

It indicates it was a deliberate act.

And the name means “butter” and not lard.

The ongoing controversy is that the name assigned to a railroad stop in South San Joaquin County at a creamery along the tracks in the late 1800s where there really wasn’t a community per se, was either “Manteiga” (Spanish for butter) or “Mantequilla” (Portuguese for butter).

One story had the railroad misspelling “Manteiga” as “Manteca” on paperwork such as tickets regarding the creamery stop in South San Joaquin County.

Another story has it the word “Mantequilla” was too long for tickets so the railroad shortened it to “Manteca” which also means lard in Spanish.

The 1915 article states it was a deliberate act naming “Manteca” as “Manteca.”

That’s because the Velasquez Spanish Dictionary at the time Manteca was inadvertently named because the railroad needed a name for the rail stop, gave the following three definitions for the word “manteca.”

(1)lard, fat, pomatum

(2)butter

(3)The pulp and oily fat of fruit.

The dictionary is the oldest Spanish to English dictionary published in the United States having first appeared in 1852.

The same article noted the “name was probably given by a  Southern Pacific (Railroad) man At least it was printed in the train schedule and ‘Manteca’ it came to be.”

It went to say, “There is no doubt as to the intention of the one who gave Manteca the name. At that time, Manteca had a cream receiving station and little more to mark it as a town, And all the argument the word ‘Manteca’ was a mistake is of no avail.”

“’Manteca’ does mean butter. There was no mistake in their intention, the meaning of the word, or the appropriateness of title, all argument to the contrary notwithstanding.”

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com