According the History of Jay County by M.W. Montgomery, published in 1864, the name Limberlost came "from the following circumstance: A man named James Miller, while hunting along its banks, became lost. After various fruitless efforts to find his way home, in which he would always come around to the place of starting, he determined he would go a straight course, and so, every few rods would blaze a tree. While doing this he was found by his friends who were hunting him. Being an agile man, he was known as 'limber Jim,' and, after this, the stream was called 'Limberlost.' "
The Indiana State Museum contends "The swamp received its name from the fate of Limber Jim Corbus, who went hunting in the swamp and never returned. When the locals asked where Jim Corbus was, the familiar cry was “Limber’s lost!”
The Limberlost was the location of Gene Stratton Porter's novel A Girl of the Limberlost.