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Ghost Towns and History of
Montana Newsletter
LANDUSKY ON THE OUTLAW TRAIL
Clothes were rationed in Britain and the U.S
from June 1, 1941. This limited the amount of
new garments people could buy until 1949, four
years after the warâ€™s end. Fabric restrictions also
put a new emphasis on legs and hemlines. Many
women during this time were then able to take
an old dress and mend it into a new style.â€”
Courtesy of Frontier Montana Museum
From The Harlem News, Jan. 7, 1944
Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
B y D o n F . K l e p p e r
The old Outlaw Trail, which in its entirety ran from just south of the Montana-Canada
border to
El Paso, Texas, has,
like those who rode it,
faded into the past. In
Montana there remains
a visible link to
that trail and its notorious
users-the crumbling little town of Landusky.
In the summer of 1893, Powell â€œPikeâ€ Landusky and Bob Orman, prospecting
in the foothills of the Little Rocky Mountains, discovered gold in a
small streambed. News of the strike soon leaked out. By 1894, the influx of
prospectors and boomtown followers had created a town which, in deference
to one of its founders, was called Landusky. By that time, Pike apparently
had given up prospecting and was proprietor of the Landusky Saloon.
Previous to his prospecting excursion into the Little Rockies, Pike Landusky,
a native of Pike County, Missouri, had fashioned a reputation in the gold
camps of Virginia City, Alder Gulch and Last Chance Gulch. He was a big,
tough man with a violent temper. Because of its proximity to the Outlaw
Trail, the town of Landusky became a stopping-off place for those seeking
supplies, the hard liquor of Pikeâ€™s saloon, or just a place to hide out. The
nearby Little Rockies and the Missouri River breaks offered quick sanctuary
to those evading the law.
A few miles south of Landusky there lived a ranch family of three sons, John,
Loney and Harvey Logan, and their mother. The sons exhibited wild traits at
an early age. Harvey eventually picked up the assumed name â€œKid Curry,â€
Photo Courtesy of Lewistown Public Library
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
presumably due to his admiration of Flat Nose George Curry, a well-known Wyoming outlaw who rode the
Outlaw Trail. The Logan family was thereafter known as the Currys.
Recreation for the Curry boys consisted of riding into Landusky and shooting up the town or riding their
horses into business establishments. Jew Jakeâ€™s Saloon was a favorite target. One encounter between the
Currys and one-legged Jew Jake is reported to have lasted several hours with Jake winning the battle by
blasts from a shotgun, which caused the Currys to retire with perforated skins.
I visited Landusky in the summer of 1987. As I gazed down the deserted main street with its twin rows of
tumbling down false-fronted buildings, I tried to visualize the volatile mixture of humanity which had trod
its environs during the gold-rush days: the miners, the last of the meat hunters, freighters, cowboys from
distant ranches seeking any available entertainment, a few Indians, such riders of the Outlaw Trail as the
Sundance Kid, Butch Cassidy, Deaf Charlie, and, of course, the Curry bunch. The only representative of the
law within a hundred miles was the town constable, Pike Landusky. Presumably the owner of a business
catering to those on the wild side could not have been expected to be overly diligent in enforcing law and
order.
There are as many versions of what brought about the
bad blood between Pike Landusky and Kid Curry as
there are accounts of the actual shooting of Pike by the
Kid in 1894. One account states the incident took place
while the two were engaged in a fistfight in Jew Jakeâ€™s
Saloon. Another- places the scene at Landuskyâ€™s Saloon,
where, after an argument, a quick-draw gunfight
took place in which Pike came in second and died instantly.
Another version claims he was shot in the back.
Having killed the representative of the law, Kid was
now a fugitive from the law. He and Loney joined the
Wild Bunch riding the Outlaw Trail, robbing trains and
banks from northern Montana to the far Southwest.
The original Landusky gold strike petered out, and the town quieted down to a mere supply point for area
ranchers. The coming of Prohibition removed the last vestiges of the old wild days.
The giant Pegasus Gold Inc. is on the mountainside just above the old town. The open-pit mine produced
millions in gold, silver and zinc. Below it, the little town on the Outlaw Trail fades slowly into its violent past,
and the remains of its founder rest in peace in the grass of the Landusky graveyard.â€”Courtesy of the Eastern
Montana Outlaw News in Cooperation with Missouri River Country. To learn more about all the adventures
awaiting you in northeast Montana, visit: https://missouririvermt.com
The killing of Pike Landusky by Kid Curry, as pictured by O. C.
Seltzer, Great Falls artist who was widely known for his
paintings and drawings depicting western life. Courtesy of
The Kevin Review, Aug. 30, 1928, Accessed via: https://
chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
The Most Fantastic Times I Remember By Ted Clarke
Ted Clarke was born in Eureka, MT but lived mostly along the west
Kootenai. He went to the Rexford School, which was relocated
when the Kootenai Dam went in. Eventually his family home was
inundated by Lake Koocanusa. They relocated to the new Rexford
town, and Tedâ€™s dad, Ed, worked as a school bus driver in the winter
and for the Forest Service in Rexford in the summer.
Edâ€™s first lookout job was in 1955 at Webb Mountain Lookout, above
Eureka. For eleven-year-old Ted, this was a new experience that
has stayed strong in his memory. It was his first time with pack
trains, hauling water from a spring his dad developed a quarter of a
mile below the lookouts, sleeping on the lookoutâ€™s wood floor with younger brother Dave, and
learning to help with lookout duties, like using the
alidade, taking the weather, and watching for
storms.
Photo Courtesy NMLA
Photo Courtesy NMLA
Ted remembers his dad building a cold storage box
out of flat rocks with screens on two sides to store
butter, milk, cheese, and other foods because they
had no refrigerator. The box was still there in the
â€˜80s when Ted visited the lookout.
Mother Pearl, Ted, Dave, family dog with water packs,
and homemade rock cooler.
Ted and Dave spent much time at the lookout gathering
huckleberries and morel mushrooms, making
pets out of â€œchuckamucksâ€â€”golden ground squirrels,
crows, learning to play pinochle, and playing with their dog. They also found many ways to
keep themselves occupied. They always had slingshots in their pockets, and they fished Boulder
Lake, near Boulder Mountain Lookout.
They also developed their own â€œslide.â€ Said Ted, â€œOne summer, I donâ€™t know which one, maybe in
1955, Dave and I made a slide out of some of the old #9 telephone wire strung through the trees
and now abandoned. ..The single line ran down the east face of the lookout and somehow got to
Rexford for the communication link. My Dad hiked the line for a while doing some repair, but
found a bull moose had gotten tangled in the line and died during the winter or spring. In any
event that was the demise of the #9 link. We began using a short-wave two-way radio from then
on. A remnant 100â€™ piece of #9 was salvaged and tied to a tree uphill and the other end to a tree
downhill. Before attaching the wire, weâ€™d run the wire through a piece of Â½â€ galvanized pipe about
12â€ longâ€¦that was what weâ€™d hang on to. By starting at the top of the slope and hanging on to
the pipe weâ€™d let gravity take over and slide the 100 feet, dropping into a pile of limbs at the bottom
tree. If you dropped too early you would fall in the rockslide and seriously hurt yourself. If you
didnâ€™t drop into the brush pile at the bottom you would slam into the treeâ€¦. either the tree or the
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
fall into the rocks would get you into the doctor. Fortunately, we were never seriously hurt and
soon abandoned the slide, took it down and went on to other things.â€
In the three years their family were on Webb
Mountain, they experienced some rainstorms
that kept all four of them busy. One such
storm demonstrated to young Ted the importance
of the lightning protection on the
lookout. â€œAbout noon one clear sunny day,
not a cloud in the sky, the gable mounted
lightning rods began to hum, soon getting
louder and louder until they buzzed like a bad
continuous electrical short. A few hours later
thunderhead clouds began to form in the
southwest beyond Libby and the Cabinet
Photo Courtesy NMLA
Webb Mountain and Wimpy, the family Woody, from Tedâ€™s cover
page of his memoirs.
Mountain range, and you could see an occasional lightning strike. The lightning rods began to
form an electrical charge that soon became visible about the size of a volleyball. It was an iridescent
gold color and made a noise you could hear from several hundred feet away. It would move
up and down and horizontally along the rods, all the time being discharged through the Â¼â€ wire
system. I remember Dad saying donâ€™t touch anything metal in the lookout. We knew we were in
for an all-night lightning storm and recording of strikes. The clouds continued to form, more and
more strikes could be seen but too far off for us to begin registering, being in the southwest districts
of Libby and Idaho yet. As the storm system moved toward us, the discharging of lightning
from the clouds must have lessened the charge in the lookout and the gold static ball left us
alone, but now we began recording the strikes at hand. There were too many strikes for one person
so each of us took one exposure only and that became our responsibility. There were so
many strikes at the same time it was nearly impossible to record the altitude and we could only
identify the azimuth before the next person had to record their azimuth in their exposure. The alidade
wheel was constantly moving for several hours before the storm subsided. Several strikes
were recorded that appeared to set fires.â€
When Ted was fourteen, his father got a job on Black Butte Lookout, where the family stayed until
his dad died in 1964.
Later in high school, Ted worked for the Forest Service spotting and putting out fires. One memorable
time, he and another firefighter got sent on a small night fire. After putting a line around it,
they were too late to leave. â€œWe only had one sleeping bag. It was a paper sleeping bag you
know those things? They kept some of the breeze off you and about all it did. So, we were sitting
around one little hot spot there that we can kind of stay warm. Finally, we got cold and we got
tired and we both tried to crawl into that sleeping bag together. We made it but it was not very
comfortable.â€
Later in his teens, the Forest Service wanted Ted to staff Pinto Point Lookout, but he was dating
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
his future wife, Ina, at the time, and ended up on a brush
and trail crew instead. However, he did work a short
while on Red Mountain Lookout, which allowed him to go
down at night and date Ina.
Today, Ted lives in Pleasant Valley and talks of returning
with his wife and family to Webb Mountain, which is now
a cabin rental. He enjoyed sharing his memories with his
grandkids which, Ted says, â€œâ€¦ I will NEVER forget.â€ â€“
Courtesy of The Northwest Montana Lookout Association, For more
info, visit their website at: https://www.nwmt-ffla.org/
Photo Courtesy NMLA
This article by Beth Hodder is based on an interview that is part of
the NWMT-FFLA Oral History Project to preserve the stories associated
with the lookouts (people and places) of Northwest Montana. This and other interviews will be archived at the
University of Montana Library, and can be found online at https://scholarworks.umt.edu/nwmt-ffla/
HISTORY OF PARK COUNTY-continued
From The Livingston Enterprise, January 1, 1900:
Livingston Flouring Mill Company, Merchant Millers. The flouring mill industry of Park county is just in its
infancy, the present interest being stimulated by the building up of the agricultural resources.
In June, 1898, the foundation was laid for the construction of the Livingston Flouring mill. It consisted of a
stock company of the principal business men of Livingston, with A. W. Miles, president ; Wm. Grabow,
secretary, and Frank Huot, manager. The mill was completed November, 1898, and all the construction
work and placement of the machinery was done by Mr. Huot.
The building is 40x50 feet, built of native stone, and consists of two floors and a basement, while it has a
daily capacity of seventy-five barrels. The basement contains the drive pulleys, main shaft and one
smutter. On the first, or grinding floor, are four double stands of E. P. Allis Co.â€™s rolls, one feed mill, one
cockle machine, one flour packer, a way hopper and one complete steam generator and heater. In the
northwest corner of the room is located the electric motor, which, with a forty-horse power, gives the
necessary power throughout the mill. It is the only motor of the kind in the state that is used in flouring
mills, giving a satisfaction that far exceeds that of steam.
On the second floor are located two E. P. Allis middling purifiers, a perfection dust collector, one universal
bolter, one round reel and two centrifugal reels, two wheat separators, a brush machine and oat clipper.
The products of this mill are competing with high-grade eastern flour, with the following brands : Old
Faithful, Yellowstone, Tourist, Livingston Royal, Ivory, Starlight, Livingston Pastry, with a specialty of Barleytine.
That these brands have been appreciated is shown by the present demand far exceeding the supply.
William
Grabow. William Grabow, secretary and manager of the Livingston Flouring Mills, is a son of the
Father, Ed Clarke, and granddaughter in 1960 at
Black Butte Lookout.
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
Fatherland, born in Goldewin, near the town of Gustrow, August 16, 1850. During
his thirty years of life in his native country he was principally engaged as agricultural
superintendent of large farms, which required a special education in
agriculture, horticulture and a general knowledge of stock, his education being
obtained in Germany by private tutoring and in the public schools. As his occupation
required his moving in the best and most extravagant society, and finding
that he was unable to lay up a bank account, Mr. Grabow decided on emigrating
to America, locating at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1880. While here he did service
with the Standard Oil company, subsequently joining a colony who went to
Glen Ullin, North Dakota, and engaged in ranching. Being dissatisfied in his location
here, he took up his active business at Livingston, Montana, in the spring of
1884. For six years he was engaged as a general laborer, accumulating sufficient
capital, thereby, to engage in business for himself, which consisted of a general
lodging house, with restaurant and liquor refreshments, and was known as the Tivoli.
Just west of the city Bauman and Grabow run a building brick factory, but when the panic of 1893 came Mr.
Grabow moved farther up town, locating his Tivoli permanently at the corner of Main and Callendar
streets.
In May, 1898, Mr. Grabow was elected as secretary of the Flouring Mill, and in October, 1899, his office was
absorbed in the general manager. In the spring of 1895 he was elected alderman for the First ward under
Mayor Beleyâ€™s administration.
He was married to Miss Lizzie Burmester of Spokane, Washington, in 1890. He is an active member of the
Sons of Hermann, being the present secretary. His family consists of three sons and one daughter, and belong
to the Lutheran church.
Frank Huot. The present miller of the Livingston Flouring mill was born in 1850 at the junction of the Mississippi
river and Lake St. Croix, Wisconsin, now the city of Prescott. When three years old the family moved
to Trimbell, Wis., where the father was engaged in the saw-mill industry. When twenty- seven years of age
the subject of this sketch embarked in business for himself by purchasing a flour mill of C. W. Hackett, of St.
Paul, but in the spring of 1877 high water destroyed everything while in a flourishing condition. Mr. Huot
now removed to Lac Qui Parle county, Minnesota, and established the first flour mill in that county. After a
stay of some two years there he was temporarily located at Watson, Minnesota; Desmet, South Dakota,
and Parker, South Dakota, in quest of a suitable location, finally accepting the management of the Nickel
Plate Roller mills at Oakdale, Nebraska. After five years of ser vice at this place, and with a good record behind
him, Mr. Huot again started in business for himself by leasing a mill at Springhill, Montana. After re
modeling the mill, and after establishing a good custom, the mill burned and everything went up in the
flames.
William Grabow
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G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
Still following his favorite pursuit he did excellent service for a time in the
flouring mills at Big Timber, Montana, finally locating at Livingston in the fall of
1898, where he has since been doing satisfactory service in his present situation.
Frank
Huot
Mr. Huot is a wide-awake business man, while on the other hand he is as well
up in the social circles. He is an active member of the Minneapolis Head Millersâ€™
association and the Minneapolis Operative Millersâ€™ association, besides a
member of the A. O. U. W. Lodge for twenty-two years and the Modern
Woodmen for seven years. He also belongs to the Royal Highlanders and K. of
Pâ€™s, for the latter having
been deputy grand chancellor,
also deputy head council for the Modern Woodmen.
The
ancestors of Mr. Huot have all been pioneers, his
father having been engaged in â€™42 and '43 with the
American Fur company, wintering at Fort Alpen, Montana
; while his mother was born on the present site of
St. Paul in 1829. Furthermore, his grandfather became
a citizen of the United States by the treaty of 1803,
which made him a citizen of Minnesota. In 1881 Mr. Huot was united in marriage to Miss Clara Gilberson,
who is a distant descendant of Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden, who was killed in the battle of
Luten. They are the parents of six childrenâ€”four girls and two boys. -Read More in Next Monthâ€™s Issue!
Accessed via: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
Pursued by the U.S. Army since June 1877, approximately
800 Nez Perce men, women and
children traveled over the Bitterroot mountains
and camped in the Big Hole Valley. Thinking
there was no immediate pursuit by the army, this
familiar site was a perfect place to rest.
Photo by Jolene Ewert-Hintz
As dawn broke on the morning of August 9,
1877, the 7th Infantry, led by Colonel John Gibbon,
attacked. Nez Perce warriors rallied and
fought back. The overwhelmed soldiers withdrew to a nearby grove of trees. Warriors surrounded the
soldiers as Nez Perce survivors hurried out of the Big Hole Valley. In less than 24 hours this tranquil setting
became a scene of chaos and terror. Now considered sacred ground; this is the final resting place
for many of those who lost their lives here.- Big Hole National Battlefield
×‰	Ú 7cassandra://Jj1ZIg8PFl3K_XDmpiJc4yiMoqkitiQz8OwF2AxEVRMÍ'¢Í`ÌÆÍ ×h<À¢JEðPHß‰å×h<À¢JEðPHß‰äÍøÍ(×‘C‘×˜š   ÍüÍ(u×‰œ“×‰	Ú 7cassandra://oLdwlFxjQ9GY-okOjUE25MsnbAZjrHJ5Gt23-Rg2iCkÎ x…Í` ÍóÍ²×‰	Ú 7cassandra://QStNVBTy5-dauOA1x7aFlHtTg8e5__dRjn7fLSyff8AÍªÍ` ÍsÍà×‰	Ú 7cassandra://lYh4OxZBytO7aEfrHWH_YG6_bTq8hSDCZkFgndtqEusÍ*¦Í`ÌÆÍ ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ•× ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ ÍÖÍÌË9×‰HÚ 6http://www.helenahistory.org/old_catholic_cemetery.htmG××ÒÔÔÔrÒïïïÌ× ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ ÍKÍÍ*9×‰HÚ 0http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/p/my-books.htmlG××ÒÔÔÔrÒïïïÌ× ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ LÍßÍ9×‰HÚ 0http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/p/my-books.htmlG××ÒÔÔÔrÒïïïÌ× ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ Í÷Í;ÍV9×HÚ $mailto:ghosttownsofmontana@gmail.com××Ðˆ× ×h<À¤JEðPHßŠ
 LÍáÍ9×HÚ %http://ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/p/my××Ðˆ×‰EÚƒP a g e 8
G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f
M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r
First Missoula Cemetery
In the summer of 1974, a Missoula homeowner was adding a porch to his house on Cherry Street
when he got a big surprise. The backhoe digging the foundation unearthed something that should
not have been there: human bones. The coroner confirmed the discovery of two sets of bones encased
in the decayed wood of old-fashioned coffins. Authorities determined that no foul play was
involved. These were simply historic burials, the individuals placed in the ground by loved ones
hoping for their eternal rest. The pieces of metal hardware, splintered wood, and bone fragments
were collected in a box that today sits on a shelf in a University of Montana laboratory. The bones
serve as teaching tools for anthropology students. Those who have studied the contents of the
box have solved some of the mystery. Historic maps of Missoula and newspaper clippings show
that Missoulaâ€™s first cemetery was located in the area in 1865. It fell into disuse with the opening
of the current city cemetery in 1884, and the last burial there occurred in 1895. When the land
was subdivided in the 1940s, traces of the old cemetery disappeared, but, according to city records,
most burials were not removed. This is not particularly uncommon. Other Montana communities
have subdivisions located on historic burial grounds. Helenaâ€™s Robinson Park and its adjacent
residential streets, built over the townâ€™s first Catholic cemetery, is one example. But to whom
did the two sets of bones belong? Students determined long ago that one was a child and the other
a female adult. Coffin hardware fragments were consistent with nineteenth-century caskets
styles. But whose eternal sleep was so rudely interrupted? That is a part of the mystery that will
probably never be solved. -Ellen Baumler
Ellen Baumler was an award-winning author and Montana historian. A master at linking history with modern-day supernatural events, Ellen's
true stories have delighted audiences across the state. The legacy she left behind will be felt for generations to come and we are in debt to her for
sharing her extensive knowledge of Montana history in such an entertaining manner. To view and purchase Ellenâ€™s books, visit: http://
ellenbaumler.blogspot.com/p/my-books.html
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