Looking Back In Time

It is January of 1907 and the news this week is mostly all about the Little Rockies. Abraham Gill has disappeared and the Ruby Gulch is getting bigger and bigger as a gold mine.

Mr. Gill was a partner of a man named Winter who had a ranch close to Landusky. The ranch had belonged to Johnny Curry and Curry eventually shot Winter to get the ranch back. There is a wonderful ghost story about Winter being seen yet in his night gear, brushing his teeth as that was what he was doing when he was shot. Anyhow, Abraham Gill came out looking for Winter’s murderer and here is how the newspapers of the day covered it.

Where is A. D. Gill of Landusky? He has disappeared. A very astute gentleman with a library of the classics that surround all the rooms of his ranch house. He was no coward. And now it is feared that he has been assassinated. His luggage arrived at the station at Harlem for a trip to the east but no Gill. He was a friend and partner of James Winter and Winter had had some trouble with the Curry gang. Just before those men left the Little Rockies shortly after robbing the Great Northern Express at Wagner, Winter stepped out of his cabin door and was shot and killed, many think by the Curry gang. That death and the destruction of the gang was on Gill’s mind from then on. Soon he was stating the gang was after him as well. The gang left but left many friends in mountains who had no use for Gill and in addition, the sheriff’s posse hunting for the Curry’s a few years ago made their headquarters at the Gill ranch and thus further make the gang mad at Gill. Some even said that in the uncertain light in the early dawn in which Winter was murdered, the assassins mistook him for Gill when they fired the shots. A search has been started but probably the body is in the Missouri which rarely gives up its dead.

The Senatorial question is settled in Montana and J. W. Dixon of Missoula will be the successor of W. A. Clark of Butte in the United States Senate. The Republican caucus settled this peacefully in Helena Tuesday evening. The caucus vote will be ratified next Tuesday by a full vote of the legislature which is just a formality. Dixon won 49 votes of 72 total to become the Senator from Montana.

Nick Faber was in Chinook from his ranch on Little Box Elder Creek.

A meeting of the stock growers of this area was held in the city this week. T. Gorman was elected president and Ed Broadwater secretary. Bounties on wolves were discussed and it was decided to raise the bounty to twenty dollars per head for female wolves and ten dollars per head for male wolves and two dollars per head for pups. Directors of the Association are John Thompson, Simon Pepin and Billy Williamson.

Honorable Ben Phillips and Charlie Whitcomb of Phillips were in Havre and announced that a company of New Jersey capitalists have offered them seven and a half million dollars for the Ruby Gulch Mine and Mill at Zortman. About two years ago a half interest of the mine was acquired by the present owners from C. J. McNamara and Thomas Marlow of Big Sandy for five hundred thousand dollars. Phillips and Whitcomb had already owned the other half interest. There are a good many stories about this deal but Mr. Phillips was not in a loquacious mood while in Havre. One story is that McNamara and Marlow made Phillips an offer to buy or sell for five hundred thousand dollars. It was supposed that Phillips did not have five hundred thousand dollars being heavily in debt due to sheep and cattle interests but he produced and got the mine that under his supervision has been a bonanza!

A girl hugged her husband to death. The jury’s verdict was it was worth dying for.