Pike Landusky - Part 2

Of the Most Rugged Type of Adventurers on the Old Frontier; The Mining Camp that Bore His Name and was the
Roughest Settlement in America; Pike’s Thrilling Experiences in the Little Rockies; An Uncontrollable Temper Hastened His Death

(Cont. from last week)

Originally published in the Hysham Echo on May 26, 1927 by Dan R. Conway

For a few moments they feigned a fine indifference, but they could not entirely conceal their nervousness. With ears strained they were listening for sinister sounds, but they refused to dare even a glance at the two principals of a scene which certainly must sooner or later transpire. The two men drank and then -
There was a lull and then a shuffling of moving feet when the “Kid” slowly made his way to where “Pike” stood with elbow upon the bar. Without words, the “Kid” struck “Pike” a terrific blow and then, with a speed that took the deputy off his guard, floored the man. “Pike” received an unmerciful beating, and when “Pike” reached for his handkerchief to wipe the blood from his face, the “Kid” whipped out his revolver and shot the prone man through the heart. Thus ended a career perhaps without parallel in the annals of frontier history.

The Little Rockies

One of the most interesting and romantic sections of Montana, and one of the last areas to be tamed by the forces of an advancing civilization is the Little Rocky Mountain country in what is now Blaine and Phillips counties. Slightly off the beaten paths of modern-day traffic, this district is probably less familiar to Montanans than any other such historic section of the Treasure state.

With its gold mines which have produced millions of dollar, its adjoining ranges where in days gone by sheep and cattle men staged their bitter and bloody feuds; its historic ranches where cattle thieves, road agents, train robbers - the “bad men” of thirty years ago - maintained their headquarters and rendezvous; and its murder mysteries, the Little Rockies area stands second to none in romance of the most exciting order.

Famous Gold District

The Little Rockies comprised one of the richest gold district of Montana. The Ruby Gulch Gold Mining company of Zortman, the August Gold company at Landusky, the Fergus Mining company, the Rawhide, the Ninety-Six and other mines produced fortunes for their owners. It was not until the early nineties that mining was carried on in this district, the first claim of any importance being located and worked by Bob Orman and Pike Landusky. It was in honor of the later that the mining town in America, was named. In a very short time Orman and Landusky took $42,000 from their claims, despite the fact that they were forced to work under difficulties. The leads they had uncovered were located within the borders of Fort Belknap reservation, and they were consequently forced to work for the most part under cover of night, sacking their ore and transferring it on packhorses to the nearest railroad point, from where it was shipped to Aurora, Ill., for treatment in the smelters there.

The news of the strike spread and a stampeded followed. Isolated as that section was, the new mining district attracted a motley crowd of miners, gamblers and adventurers in search of gold and the excitement which always followed in the wake of a new discovery. Prospectors, trappers and cowboys were followed to the new location by robbers, horse thieves and others who came to Landusky to drink and gamble and ply their nefarious arts. Much of the whiskey that was sold at old Landusky, it has been said, was of local manufacture and was a liquid not at all conducive to peace and harmony. Gun fights were frequent occurrences and life was held even more lightly for a time than in the older gold camps of the Vigilante days. And, many a plot of ground in that part of the Little Rockies, with marks now effaced by time and the elements, is the site of a miniature “boothill” cemetery.

A Boothill Cemetery

Away up on the crest of these Little Rockies in the center of a wind-swept plateau, is one of the boothill plots in which are two lonely graves surrounded by a weatherbeaten picket fence. And, today, if the bones that have moldered in these narrow trenches for thirty years or more could rise, take form and speak, they could unfold a story of romance, of the lure of yellow metal and frontier adventure, of passions aroused by the presence of new-found wealth, of jealousy kindled by the light of women’s eyes, of gunplays and assassinations, of a feud that attained national notoriety, of brigandage and marauding all culminating in the inevitable penalty of the transgressor. Here in this little plot rest the bones of “Pike” Landusky, shot down in Jew Jake’s saloon by a member of the Curry gang; and here lie the remains of Johnny Curry, one of the famous Curry trio.
Down the slope and but a gunshot’s distance from this little boothill cemetery stands the now “ghost city” of Landusky, once the theatre of those stirring events which divided Northern Montana into two camps, and from which radiated the escapades of the Curry gang, reaching across the continent and into the far away republic of Argentine.

The Death of John Curry

The story of the Curry boys and their adventurous life in Montana has become common knowledge. This John Curry was found final resting place in this secluded and protected spot, came to Montana from Missouri in the early eighties to join his brothers who had already sought out the wilds of that new country, much because of the fact that the more civilized sections had become unhealthy places of abode. Soon after his arrival in the upper Missouri region, John Curry began to cultivate a reputation as a bad man. One day, while indulging in a pastime not uncommon in Landusky - that of shooting up the town - a cowpuncher shot one of his arms off. Not satisfied with this punishment, Curry some months later declared war against a rancher by the name of Jim Winters, who lived nearby. Curry ordered Winters to leave his ranch, giving him but a limited time in which to so do. Armed with a rifle one day, he rode up to the Winters ranch house, with the evident intention of killing Winters, However, the tables turned on the aggressor, and the rancher shot the desperado twice with a shotgun, inflicting mortal wounds. Later, the famous “Kid” Curry, seeking revenge for the death of his brother killed Winters from ambush.

During the years from 1870 to 1884, long after law and order had come to western Montana mining camps, in the days when border lawlessness reigned throughout Central and Northern Montana, when were enacted many dramas in which the principal actors were desperadoes, sheriffs, horse and cattle thieves and vigilantes, Pike Landusky was an outstanding figure. Scenes which were common enough along the trails leading to and from old Bannack and Virginia City, in the early sixties, were frequently reenacted in the Judith Basin, along the Lower Musselshell and in the Milk River valley and the wilds of the Little Rockies; and “Pike” lived the life.

Powell “Pike” Landusky

Powell “Pike” Landusky used to say that he was half French and half Polish. He arrived at Fort Benton on a steamer in the spring of 1864, and proceeded to Last Chance Gulch (now Helena), but not until he had fittingly celebrated his arrival in the new west by a fist fight on the levee at Benton in which, it is said, he nearly killed a steamer roustabout.
Then a lad of but eighteen years, Landusky was in the prime of his youth. He was a long, lank, green country boy. In fact, as one old-timer put it, he was so green looking that after his arrival at Last Chance, he was continually the butt of miners’ jokes. It was because of this “kidding” that he one day received the peculiar cognomen which remained with him until the day of his death. One miner in particular had been most active in teasing the “tenderfoot kid.” This miner was a bully and of the type that never knows when to stop. One day, in the course of his nagging, he asked Landusky:
“Whar be yu from ennyhow, Kid?”
This aroused the patriotic pride of the boy and with a terrific blow he knocked the bully down, answering as he did so: “From Pike county, Missouri, by ____!”
That settled it; he was “Pike” to the day he “cashed in.”
From Helena, Pike drifted into the employ of the Diamond R Freighting outfit and later into trading for himself. It was while engaged in the latter business that occurred many of the episodes which made him famous among the coterie of typical Montana frontiersmen.

His Besetting Weakness

“Pike” was noted for three qualities which he possessed, each in a most marked degree. He was the soul of generosity when a friend was involved. On the other hand, he was the bitterest and most uncompromising of enemies. Lastly and most unfortunately for the man, no man in Montana ever had an equal reputation with him for ungovernable temper and fits of rage and passion. This trait came near to causing his death on a score of different occasions, and was perhaps the quality which led to his untimely death at the hand of “Kid” Curry in Jew Jake’s saloon at Landusky.

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