1. Hanging the Sheriff: A Biography of Henry Plummer, Mather, R. E. & Boswell, F. E. 

ISBN # 0-9663355-0-3 Publisher: Historic Montana Publishing 216 Woodford Missoula, MT 59801. 
Contact: yswolf@montana.com. (406) 728-3247. Price $14.95. Cover design by Margaret Anderson of Athabasca University.

This is a new edition, by a new Montana publishing venture, of the 1987 classic which first detailed in a scholarly manner the life and times of Henry Plummer. This new edition has an enlightening Introduction by one of the most respected scholars of Idaho history, Dr. Merle Wells, and of course Bannack was in Idaho when Plummer was executed by the vigilantes. This is the book to start with in any real examination of the Montana Vigilantes. 

2. Vigilante Victims: Montana's 1864 Hanging SpreeMather, R. E. & Boswell, F. E. History West Publishing Company PO Box 23133 Oklahoma City, OK 73123 (405)720-2954 Contact: HistoryWst@aol.com

Mather and Boswell relate the gripping stories of twenty-one lynchings that took place in the gold fields of Montana. Montana's 1864 turmoil, the authors contend, was no simple combat between good and evil, but a struggle for power. 
3. Gold Camp Desperadoes, Mather & Boswell

History West Publishing Company PO Box 23133 Oklahoma City, OK 73123 (405)720-2954 Contact: HistoryWst@aol.com
The authors tell five stories that explore the rash of robberies and murders which plagued the mining frontier during the 1850's and 1860's. The stories profile Charley Forbes, Cherokee Bob, Bill Mayfield, Jack Cleveland, George Ives, and others.
4. The Bannack Gallows, A novel by R. E. Mather

History West Publishing Company PO Box 23133 Oklahoma City, OK 73123 (405)720-2954 Contact: HistoryWst@aol.com
Cover design by Margaret Anderson of Athabasca University.

This is a must-read for anyone interested in the drama and tragedy of the events of 1864 in Bannack and Virginia City. Here is the author's note at the beginning of the book:
" In a remote little ghost town in Montana, events stranger than fiction once took place. I have often walked Bannack’s abandoned lanes, soaking up a brooding past that hovers over the narrow valley and, like white alkali dust, saturates every gangly sagebrush and weathered log cabin lining main street. I have stood under a harsh sun and shaded my eyes to gaze up the barren gulch, transfixed by the sight of a delicate pine gallows outlined against the drab hills beyond. In some school textbook you may have read about the gripping events that occurred at the Bannack gallows more than a century ago. But I doubt the account you read was correct. For years I have lived with the burden of knowing the truth. And the truth is that a haunting crime was committed at Bannack and then painstakingly covered up for decades. The story told in the following pages lays bare a troubling secret. And if the story seems excessively violent, it is because it took place during violent times." R. E. Mather 

5. Scandal of the West: Domestic Violence on the Frontier, R. E. Mather, with an Introduction by Louis Schmittroth 

History West Publishing Company PO Box 23133 Oklahoma City, OK 73123 (405)720-2954 Contact: HistoryWst@aol.com
Click here for a description, an image of the front cover, and an excerpt.

Cushman, Dan. Montana: The Gold Frontier. Great Falls: Stay Away, Joe, Publishers, 1973.

Dimsdale, Thomas J. The Vigilantes of Montana. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1953.

Langford, Nathaniel Pitt. Vigilante Days and Ways. Helena: American & World Geographic Publishing, 1996

Miller, James. The Road to Virginia City: The Diary of James knox Polk Miller. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960.

Pauley, Arthur. Henry Plummer: Lawman and Outlaw. White Sulphur Springs, Montana: The Meagher County News, 1980. 

Ronan, Margaret. Frontier Woman: The Story of Mary Ronan. Edited by H. G. Merriam. Missoula: University of Montana, 1973.

Sanders, Helen F., ed. X. Beidler: Vigilante. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957.

Stuart, Granville. Forty Years on the Frontier. Edited by Paul C. Phillips.

Thane, James L., Jr. A Governor's Wife on the Mining Frontier: The Letters of Mary Edgerton from Montana, 1863-1865. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Library, 1976.