A Tenderfoot in Montana: Reminiscences of the Gold Rush, the Vigilantes, and the Birth of Montana Territory

Frank Thompson’s lively memoir details his experiences in the upper Missouri country at the beginning of the Montana gold rush. A young man at the outset of the Civil War, Thompson supported the Union cause but realized that military life was not for him. Turning to the frontier, he headed west aboard a steamboat from St. Louis in 1862, arriving at Fort Benton in what would later become Montana Territory.
Thompson’s sojourn was relatively brief—he returned east after only two and a half year...