Landusky

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A view from 1939:

LANDUSKY, (4,500 alt., 120 pop.), clings precariously to a mountain side. It is now almost abandoned, though its slumber of more than three decades was broken after 1933 by a modest production of gold from the nearby August mine, which is said to have yielded $2,000,000 since its boom days in the early 1890's.

Powell Landusky, for whom the town was named, was a violent product of a violent time. A raw kid at Alder Gulch in the late 1860's, he was nicknamed 'Tike" because he boasted that he "came from Pike County, Missouri, by God." He won a reputation as the toughest rough-and-tumble fighter in the West. In 1868 he went to the mouth of the Musselshell to trap and trade with the Indians; captured by a war party of Brules, he angrily beat one of the braves with a frying pan, then whipped off the warrior's breechclout to continue the lashing. The awed Indians withdrew, and left two ponies to propitiate the demoniac captive.

At his trading post, Lucky Fort, on Flatwillow Creek in what is now Petroleum County, Landusky was shot by a Piegan. His jaw shattered, he simply tore out a loose fragment containing four teeth and threw it away.

In August 1893, Landusky and Bob Orman discovered the mine in the Little Rockies that they named for the month of discovery. At first they packed out their quartz by night, because they thought the claim was on the Fort Belknap Reservation, and feared governmental interference. Other prospectors and miners poured in and in 1894 the settlement here was organized.

Five miles south was the ranch of the tough Curry brothers, who were said to have Indian blood. It was local gossip that these prosperous ranchers sometimes branded cattle not their own. In order of age, they were: Harvey (Kid), Johnny, and Loney. They and their like were the two-gun riders sketched by Charles M. Russell as they thundered up and down the street of this town, strewing lead. After a typical fray a gambler remarked that he could go out with a pint cup and gather a quart of bullets.

Pike Landusky built a saloon for Jew Jake, who had drifted over from Great Falls after one of his legs had been shot away by a deputy sheriff. Jake liked to show off by using a Winchester rifle for a crutch. His saloon was the hang-out of the Curry boys and their friends and enemies.

In 1894 Johnny and Kid Curry were arrested on some minor charge and placed in the custody of Pike Landusky. Loney, something of a ladies' man, had been making a play for one of Pike's stepdaughters, to the old fighter's rage. Pike took advantage of the arrest to taunt and abuse Loney's brothers. At this time the town was preparing for a big Christmas celebration. Johnny Curry lent his new log barn for the big dance. Loney tuned up his fiddle and whipped the home-talent orchestra into shape. A "dead ax" wagon was sent 10 miles to borrow a small portable Mason and Hamlin organ. Only one plan was frustrated: someone had told Lousy, the stage driver, to order four dozen quarts of big juicy oysters from Baltimore, but Lousy, no authority on oysters, had ordered canned ones from Minneapolis.

On the evening of December 28, when the celebration was nearing its end, the Kid rode into town and entered Jew Jake's place. Perhaps a dozen men were in the room, among them Pike, wearing a heavy fur-lined overcoat. The Kid knocked him down, and took advantage of the coat, which impeded his enemy's movements, to beat him unmercifully. Landusky at length managed to draw his automatic, but it jammed; the Kid's .45 revolver did not.
The Curry gang left the country with haste. Seven years later the Kid held up a Great Northern passenger train at Exeter Siding, west of Malta, and carried $80,000 into the hills. He was captured, but escaped and vanished from Montana. Johnny was killed by a rancher whom he tried to intimidate. Some say that he and Pike Landusky are buried side by side in the tiny graveyard at Landusky but old-timers believe that Pike was buried on a ranch about 1 mile from town.

Source: Montana: A State Guide Book; Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Montana; September, 1939.