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Known as the birthplace of Montana, historic Fort Benton, was known in the 1800's as “the bloodiest block in the west!” The area on Front Street, between the cross streets of 15th and 16th Streets, had more than a dozen saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors and whorehouses with names such as Dena's Jungle, the Cosmopolitan, the Phoenix Bar, the Occident, the Elite and Lilly's Squaw Dance.
Violence was often the order as anything went for 24 hours every day as these establishments stayed open all night. Poker was played with six-guns atop the table where females from the brothels were as tough as the men. It was so lawless that it had to be circled by a cavalry troop.
Gunslingers walked this street; few earned a reputation, but more earned eternity here than in of the other fabled western towns. Indians were often fair game. Their corpses dumped into the river started war and massacre. Mose Solomon, saloon owner, eliminated two customers on the corner. There was a saying that goes something like this - and several others gunned down on this street "won't be missed."
The infamous Eleanor Dumont, better known as "Madame Mustache," set up her blackjack table on this street in a gambling den called “The Jungle.” She once brandished Colts to halt the landing of a steamboat carrying smallpox.
In the summer of 1867, General Thomas Francis Meagher, the first territorial governor of Montana, fell overboard from the steamboat G. A. Thompson, into the rushing waters of the Missouri River never to be seen again. Many believed his death was suspicious and he may have been murdered.The theories on what happened to Meagher, a one-time Irish revolutionary, range from his being drunk and falling overboard, to having been shot and tossed in the river after being caught cheating in a poker game, to having been murdered by agents of the British government.
In 1882, the Grand Union Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in Montana, opened on this street. Said to have the finest accommodations between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Seattle, it was also host to some extreme violence including murders in the rooms, the lobby, and just outside the front doors. Cowboys, ships' crew and longshoremen all came together here, and didn't always part amicably. The best view in the Grand Union overlooked all the action.
Several locations also boast paranormal activity and ghost sighting have been commonplace since the turn of the century. The Grand Union hotel being the most infamous, along with the old 7up Bar, Jail, Library, the actual Fort remnants and many of the downtown buildings. Among the possible ghosts is that of Madame Mustache, who may have returned to Fort Benton along with her other haunts out west.
Known as the birthplace of Montana, historic Fort Benton, was known in the 1800's as “the bloodiest block in the west!” The area on Front Street, between the cross streets of 15th and 16th Streets, had more than a dozen saloons, dance halls, gambling parlors and whorehouses with names such as Dena's Jungle, the Cosmopolitan, the Phoenix Bar, the Occident, the Elite and Lilly's Squaw Dance.
Violence was often the order as anything went for 24 hours every day as these establishments stayed open all night. Poker was played with six-guns atop the table where females from the brothels were as tough as the men. It was so lawless that it had to be circled by a cavalry troop.
Gunslingers walked this street; few earned a reputation, but more earned eternity here than in of the other fabled western towns. Indians were often fair game. Their corpses dumped into the river started war and massacre. Mose Solomon, saloon owner, eliminated two customers on the corner. There was a saying that goes something like this - and several others gunned down on this street "won't be missed."
The infamous Eleanor Dumont, better known as "Madame Mustache," set up her blackjack table on this street in a gambling den called “The Jungle.” She once brandished Colts to halt the landing of a steamboat carrying smallpox.
In the summer of 1867, General Thomas Francis Meagher, the first territorial governor of Montana, fell overboard from the steamboat G. A. Thompson, into the rushing waters of the Missouri River never to be seen again. Many believed his death was suspicious and he may have been murdered.The theories on what happened to Meagher, a one-time Irish revolutionary, range from his being drunk and falling overboard, to having been shot and tossed in the river after being caught cheating in a poker game, to having been murdered by agents of the British government.
In 1882, the Grand Union Hotel, the oldest operating hotel in Montana, opened on this street. Said to have the finest accommodations between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Seattle, it was also host to some extreme violence including murders in the rooms, the lobby, and just outside the front doors. Cowboys, ships' crew and longshoremen all came together here, and didn't always part amicably. The best view in the Grand Union overlooked all the action.
Several locations also boast paranormal activity and ghost sighting have been commonplace since the turn of the century. The Grand Union hotel being the most infamous, along with the old 7up Bar, Jail, Library, the actual Fort remnants and many of the downtown buildings. Among the possible ghosts is that of Madame Mustache, who may have returned to Fort Benton along with her other haunts out west.