By George Stringfellow
In March of 1996, I went to Bannack alone.
There wasn't ... anybody there besides me. (I was going to say
... not a soul around, but that may not be the right words here!)
I left my truck in the parking lot on the west end of town.
I started my own solitary tour on the south
side of Bannack's Main Street, the side with the Governor's
Mansion, the school with the Mason's Lodge above, Carrhart's
cabin, Crisman's store, (where Plummer's sheriff's office was),
and of course where the two jails sit on the bank of the
Grasshopper River.
The Governor's Mansion, Carrhart's cabin, the
Lodge and Plummer's old office were locked at this time of year,
whether to keep people like me out or something else in, is a
question to consider.
The schoolroom with the student's desks and the
chalkboard on the wall was open. As I stood for a moment in the
back of the room, I wondered how many children once sat at these
time-worn desks. What were their names and how many teachers once
stood at the board writing down arithmetic problems for the
children to solve. I walked through every building upstairs and
down that wasn't locked, and did the same thing on the north side
of Main Street. It was a calm day, kind of cool, there was no
wind blowing, none at all.
Behind the north side of Main Street sit a few
old miner's cabins built back up against the hillside. At one
time there were many more than there are now. Where did your
cabin sit Joe? It's been gone now for a long time. It's your
story Joe that makes me wonder about all the rest of it.
Joe Piazantha was a Mexican miner and resident
of Bannack. On January 11, 1864, the day after Henry Plummer and
his two deputies were hanged, they came for you. How many were
there Joe, eight, twelve, twenty or more? They called and told
you to come out, but you didn't obey.
When George Copley and Smith Ball opened your
door to bring you out you shot both of them. Copley suffered for
the next few hours and died. Ball ended up crippled being shot in
the hip. Were you guilty of the crimes they said you were or just
willing to take some of them out with you?
Once Copley was dead, Langford tells us they
brought up a mountain howitzer and fired three times into your
cabin. The first two shells went clean through the shack without
exploding, the third shell was aimed at your chimney and brought
the whole thing in on top of you. They stormed your cabin and
found you lying under the door. They dragged you out, wrapped a
clothesline around your neck and hung you to a pole. They fired
over a hundred rounds into your corpse, set what was left of your
cabin on fire, then tossed your body on top of the pyre. The next
day, the saloon girls panned the cold ashes sifting for gold.
They might've just given you a trial Joe. They
would have hanged you anyway for killing George Copley.
I stopped inside the church and sat in the back
row for a while looking forward. I reflected upon all the good
people that once worshiped here, the bad people who came in an
effort to make themselves look good to others, and a few of the
ugly incidents that had once transpired outside these doors.
Heading west along the boardwalk, I passed the
gallows at the base of Hangman's Gulch. This is a replica of the
original gallows Sheriff Plummer erected in 1863 to hang the
convicted Horan who killed his partner over a mining claim -- the
same gallows Plummer himself was hanged on just a few months
later.
I continued my stroll along the north side of
the street and went up the front steps of the Meade Hotel next to
Skinner's Saloon. I opened the hotel's front door and left it
wide open. I went through every room on the ground floor then
came back to the foyer and went up the winding staircase to the
second floor.
Same thing, I walked through every room. When I
got to the end of the hall on the second floor, it happened. The
front door downstairs SLAMMED shut. It didn't slowly creak
closed, it slammed shut with a bang that echoed through the
hotel. The goosebumps rose on my arm with the sound of the echo.
I didn't run or panic. There was no sensation
of harm or danger. I sort of smiled to myself and told Henry
there was no reason to get excited. I wasn't there to take or to
disturb anything. (Or anybody.)
I walked back down the hallway and down the
stairs, reopened the front door and closed it gently, then walked
across the bridge over the Grasshopper and up to the old mill. I
was still smiling to myself as I walked across the bridge into
the area they used to call Yankee Flats.
I'm not fool enough to think that I was ever in
Bannack in another lifetime, but I feel at home when I go to
Bannack. Every building that still remains has a story to tell
you, if you have the time to listen and watch.
Bannack has been called the Cradle of Montana
and indeed it was. She was born during the time the rest of the
states back east were enduring the agony of our bloody Civil War.
Her violent and turbulent birth represents the transformation
from the Land Of The Shining Mountains as she was once known, to
the Big Sky Country of the great State of Montana that we know
today.
Maybe Henry Plummer still walks the streets of
Bannack like some claim. Maybe they all do.