Presentation looks at Montana vigilantes

Local author Carol Buchanan will explore "Montana's Vigilantes – Good Guys or Bad" on Monday, June 17 at the Northwest Montana History Museum in Kalispell.

The talk is the monthly presentation of the Northwest Montana Westerners, a local history group.

Buchanan's interest in Montana's vigilantes began when, at 12 years old, she and her family visited Alder Gulch, near Virginia City, Montana. 

“One evening after supper I walked up to the Hangman’s Building and went inside. As I stood looking at the beam on which the five road agents were hanged,” she notes. “I heard the ropes creak. That has stayed with me ever since.”

She has written four historical novel based on her research, and fifth is at the publisher.

Reacting to a series of killings and robberies in the gold rush towns of early Montana, the Vigilance Committee of Alder Gulch was created in Dedember 1863, and in the first six weeks of 1864 hung at least 20 gang members, including alleged leader, Bannack sheriff Henry Plummer.

The vigilante movement and hangings spread to other mining towns, including Helena in 1865. Modern Montana Highway Patrol uniforms carry the 3-7-77 insignia, associated with the vigilantes.

But there have been charges that the vigilantes were more driven by political motives than law and order. Among the leaders were Wilbur Sanders, Montana's first U.S. Senator, and Sidney Edgerton, first territorial governor.

A mock trial of Plummer in 1993 ended in a deadlock, and led to a move to grant an official pardon.

Buchanan wrote a draft of her first novel, God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, in the 1970s and tried to market it without success. It wasn't until after moving to the Flathead in 2001, that she expanded her research and honed her writing skills through Authors of the Flathead and online classes. The finished book took off, winning the 2009 Spur Award from the Western Writers of America for best first novel.

The presentation starts at 7 p.m. on the second floor of the museum, at 124 2nd Ave. East in Kalispell. Cost is $5 for the general public, with members and youths under 16 admitted free.