Lewistown

Travel Montana

Lewistown Directory Listings

A view from 1939:

LEWISTOWN, 85.7 m. (3,960 alt, 5,358 pop.), in the pleasant Spring Creek Valley, is sheltered by a bluff on the northwest. Because of this and its abundant shade trees, it is almost invisible until the highway descends to it. Then, in the deceptively clear air, some of its residential streets seem to extend almost to the base of the Judith Mountains (R). To the north rise the blue mounds of the Moccasins.

US 87 passes the FERGUS COUNTY COURTHOUSE (L), whose delightful well-kept lawn and skillfully arranged shrubs and flowers advertise the taste of the community. Lewistown is a planned city; its people proudly describe it as a city of homes. It is the capital of the agricultural interests of the Judith Basin, though mining activity in the mountains to the north and drilling in the Cat Creek oil field in the east add to its prosperity.
The inhabitants are increasingly aware of the recreational attractions of the region, and are taking steps to exploit them.

Lewistown, first called Reed's Fort for Maj. A. S. Reed, who opened the first post office in 1881, began as a small trading post on the Carroll Trail between Helena and Crow Island at the mouth of the Musselshell. When it was incorporated in 1899 the name was changed to honor a Major Lewis who in 1876 established Fort Lewis two miles to the south. Until the arrival of the Central Montana (Jawbone) R.R. in 1903, which brought homesteaders to the Judith Basin, Lewistown was merely a freighting and trading center for cattlemen and miners.

An incident of the settlement's roaring days is related in the Journal of Granville Stuart. Large scale rustling was causing so much trouble for central and eastern Montana that in April 1884 the Montana Stock Growers' Association, in convention at Miles City, was forced to consider the situation. Afraid of precipitating a range war, the majority voted to take no action against the cattle thieves, despite vigorous protests from Theodore Roosevelt and the Marquis de Mores. The rustlers extended their activities. Groups of desperate ranchers united and took matters into their own hands, catching and hanging a few of the thieves.

On July 4, 1884, a couple of suspected ringleaders, Edward (Longhair) Owen and Charles (Rattlesnake Jake) Fallon, who were more villainous-looking than even their motion-picture successors, rode into town. After they had lost most of their money on a horse race, and had become very drunk, they thrashed one citizen and started to shoot up the town. Local men, armed with Winchesters, quickly took positions in stores and saloons along the single street. Rattlesnake Jake started to leave town, but, seeing Longhair wounded, fought his way back to him; the two continued firing until they could no longer pull a trigger. Rattlesnake Jake received nine wounds, Longhair eleven. Their last stand was made in front of the tent of an itinerant photographer, who photographed the bodies where they fell, to his profit. The aroused ranchers continued the clean-up until large-scale cattle thievery in Montana ended.

Though Lewistown today is a peaceful place, the two-gun man Ed McGivern, for many years the world's champion all-around pistol shot, is one of its special deputy sheriffs and a police deputy whose duty it is to teach local policemen to handle pistols. In his early barnstorming years he shot pieces of chalk from between his wife's fingers at 25 feet and targets from her head, aiming over his shoulder while looking into a mirror. Later he perfected an electric device to measure his speed. Records of his feats are on file in Smith & Wesson laboratories. At 12 feet, with a .38 special double-action revolver he can put five shots in a playing card in two-fifths of a second, or drawing from the holster, in one and one-fourth. He can shatter five charcoal balls tossed in the air by two men in from one and four-fifths to two and four-fifths seconds. He shoots with either hand or with both, and from every imaginable position. He is also an expert in the use of the shotgun and the high-powered rifle.

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.