Fort Benton wasn't the West's healthiest town as the sign below on today's main street indicates. During the frontier era the local paper carried a news item that a horse thief had been caught and promptly hanged from a telegraph pole. The headline said simply, TELEGRAPHED HIM HOME.

THE BLOODIEST BLOCK IN THE WEST

"IT'S A TOUGH TOWN, WAL IN THE CENTER OF THE STREET AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT." GUNSLINGERS WALKED THIS STREET; FEW MADE A REPUTATION, MORE EARNED ETERNITY HERE THAN IN OTHER FABLED WESTERN TOWNS.

INDIANS WERE FAIR GAME. THEIR CORPSES DUMPED IN THE RIVER STARTED WAR AND MASSACRE. MOSE SOLOMON SALOON OWNER ELIMINATED 2 CUSTOMERS ON THE CORNER. LOU MARSHALL ADDED HINCHLEY AND SEVERAL OTHERS GUNNED DOWN ON THIS STREET "WON'T BE MISSED."

POKER WAS PLAYED WITH 6-GUNS ATOP THE TABLES AND FEMALES FROM THE BROTHELS WERE AS TOUGH AS THE MEN. MADAME MUSTACHE BRANDISHED COLTS TO HALT THE LANDING OF A STEAMBOAT CARRYING SMALLPOX. "HOUSES" STAYED OPEN ALL NIGHT. THIS BLOCK WAS LINED WITH SALOONS, CATHOUSES AND GAMBLING DENS - SO LAWLESS IT HAD TO BE CIRCLED BY A CAVALRY TROOP SO A U.S. MARSHAL COULD SERVE WARRANTS ON FIVE OF ITS RESIDENTS. (Cutline and photo of authentic sign at p. 121)

... Brown, in order to supplement his income, for the second time in his life became a trader:

I remember starting a store at Waterton Lakes on what afterwards became my first homestead ... In the store I had a partner, Fred Kanouse, a well-known character around Macleod and Pincher Creek. Fred and I had a stock valued at $4,000 and our customers were Indians, mostly Kootenais, Nez Perces, and Flatheads from the Flat-head Reservation in Montana. Customs regulations didn't bother them; we didn't know where the International line was in those days any more than the buffalo did. The Kootenai Indians were friendly with the Blackfeet, but beyond good-humored joking when they chanced to meet in our store, there was not much intermingling. If one got a chance to steal the others horses there was no hesitation on the part of either Kootenais or Blackfeet. No other tribe of Indians that I know of really like the Blackfeet.

Well, we started this store in a little log shack on the Lower Waterton Lake and our supplies were all hauled from Fort Macleod by I.G. Baker bull team... The Kootenais would bring furs out of the mountains and we would trade them dry goods and "wet good" and provisions. We didn't sell much whiskey to the Indians although a good deal of it was consumed on the premises. To sell to the Indians was too risky a proposition though it yielded much profit. Our customers were all Indians and to let them get all the whisky they wanted would mean a carousal in which they might burn up or carry away our stock.

... Indians are naturally great gamblers and are very anxious to take part in all games of chance. Someone taught the Flatheads and Kootenais to play poker and this became their great pastime when they visited the store. It took a card shark to beat them. Kanouse was an expert poker-player so he attended to that part of the business. I was a footracer and a good shot and in competitions on the track and with the rifle I could always beat them. We had two good horses and in horse-racing we also got the best of them. In fact, we beat them at every turn. (-- pgs. 123-124)

* Note: For a guy who's supposed to be unknown to Canada, Kootenai does pretty well. To wit, his Pioneer Village in Pincher Creek, Alta., opened by the country's Chief Justice, a boost from the Manitoba Historical Society on his exploits in the Red River Valley and a significant entry here on his role as the first park warden of Waterton Lakes.

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