The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Reporter's note: Well, the story I wrote about the shooting of Frank Mitchell, a camp cook, certainly brought responses from alert readers. The story ran in the April 13 issue of the "Journal" and by the next morning I had faxes, phone messages and copies of local history books waiting on my desk at the newspaper. Wow, I must have really messed up!

Actually, the people offering corrections to the story did it in a gracious way, a way that made me thankful for more complete information about the 1898 murder. Without retelling the entire story, here's a quick recap, with the emphasis on the new information readers shared.

Thank you all for your help. A lot of people helped with this story but I never connected with the people who knew the most details.

Jim Halseth shared the first story

Readers may recall that Jim Halseth, a local cowboy, author and story teller, told me he knew the story about the shooting of Cowboy Mitchell. He cautioned, "It's how the story was told to me." One critical point to Halseth's version was that the shooting occurred near Little Snake Butte, south of Chinook, just east of the Grasshopper Reservoir on Lloyd Road. He described that butte as a place where outfits would gather in the fall to sort and brand cows, when the prairie was still unfenced. Others verified that area was used by the Bear Paw Pool, a group of cowboys hired to round up the cattle, for their camp.

New information is provided

Alert readers provided copies of newspaper stories from the "Chinook Opinion" of October 20 and October 27, 1898. The location of the shooting was described as "...the roundup camp on what is called the cotton woods of Snake creek, about 18 miles from Harlem." Ken Overcast, who's written extensively about local cowboys, described the area as "...about six or eight miles northwest of Snake Butte, and approximately ten miles downstream from the Nez Perce battlefield." These written accounts suggest the shooting occurred in the vicinity of the more well-known Snake Butte, south of Harlem on the Fort Belknap Reservation.

The newspaper accounts verify Mitchell was a cook with the Bear Paw Pool. The shooting occurred on a Monday morning in October. Several cowboys, and the boss of the Pool, were out on the range when the shooting happened. Mitchell and a cowboy named J.C. Baldwin, described as a drifter from Wyoming, got into an argument and Mitchell slapped Baldwin. Baldwin went into a tent, brooded a while, grabbed a pistol off a bunk of one of the cowboys out riding and shot three times at Mitchell.

Per two other witnesses still in camp, only the first shot hit Mitchell, passing under his right eye and lodging in his neck. The shooter took one of the Pool horses and left, heading to town. A witnesses went to the Agency to bring back a doctor who patched Mitchell up. When Captain Plunkett, the Pool boss, came back to camp with the other cowboys he saw Mitchell's condition and decided to take Mitchell "in to town"-which seems to mean "to Chinook." The shooter had already ridden to town, cashed his pay check and headed out to a place on Clear Creek to pick up his own horse. J.C. Baldwin was never heard from again.

Mitchell succumbs to wounds

Frank Mitchell was shot on a Monday. The next Monday evening he had a coughing fit which caused hemorrhaging and he died around midnight, a week after the initial shooting. A second newspaper report tells of a telegraph message to Benton (assuming Fort Benton, then the county seat) asking for instructions from the coroner. No instructions were received and eventually, after some days' delay, the coroner arrived and held an inquest as to the cause of death.

The coroner's perceived lack of urgency to conduct an inquiry into Mitchell's death seemed to upset the locals, the newspaper staff and Mitchell's colleagues. The newspaper also fumed a bit that the shooter was rumored to still be in the Bear Paw Mountains and the reward was a "paltry $100."

More mystery?

Well, this revisited story of the shooting, backed up with written records from the period, does help clear up some of the mystery surrounding the shooting event. But, no one has produced any more information about Frank Mitchell-where he was from, if he was really married as suggested on his death certificate or if he lived in or around Malta as some believed at the time.

And what of J.C. Baldwin, the shooter? Was he, in fact, the mysterious rider who stopped and asked for food at Jim Halseth's grandparents' (Henry C. and Elsie Kuhr) place south of Chinook? Did law enforcement fail to adequately pursue the shooter who was identified by two witnesses and the victim? Would a more prompt response from the coroner have led to the capture of the shooter? There are still mysterious parts to the story.

My original request still stands: If any reader has additional information about this story, please share it with me and I'll share it with readers. You can leave a message at the "Journal" office (357-3573). And, to everyone who helped with this story and provided additional information to help make the story more accurate, thanks so much. You can find a story about Cowboy Mitchell's death in Ken Overcast's book of short stories, "Yesterday's Yarns."