I was born in Dillon, Montana in 1924. My father owned and operated the City Bakery on North Montana Street, which he had bought from his father a few years earlier. My mother was born in Bannack, the first territorial capitol of Montana. My mother's father, Louis Stahl (later Judge), had moved from Michigan to Argenta, Montana, in 1888 to work in the silver mines there. In the 1890s he moved to Bannack to a log cabin, where my mother was born in 1900. The Stahl addition to the City of Dillon is named after my grandfather, but was known for a long time as "Dutch Flat." Dutch being the term used to denote anyone from Germany or Holland. Deutsch or Duitsch, both became Dutch.
My grandparents, Louis and Julia Stahl, had emigrated from Germany in 1886 to Michigan with
their infant son, Paul.
I grew up and went to school in Dillon, blessed by the presence of the Montana State Normal School, which meant that the teachers in the first eight grades were also faculty members of the Normal School, and were uniformly excellent teachers.
My father's father had also been both a miner and a baker, and prospecting was in the blood. My Uncle Vince was an inveterate prospector when he wasn't starting, operating, or selling a bakery somewhere: Twin Bridges, Montana, Salmon, Idaho, or working for my father in Dillon.
During much of the 1930s my father grubstaked one or more of the members of the Schafer family of Argenta, Montana. The old man, John (Johann), was a contemporary of my Grandfather, Louis Stahl, but had children of my father's age down to my age. I don't know how many, but all lived and grew up in the old town of Argenta, pop. about 100. One summer in the thirties, I lived with with the Schafers, but more importantly I got to accompany Henry Schafer on his prospecting trips in the mountains at the head of Rattlesnake Creek. I spent one whole summer living in the mountains with Henry and two younger Schafers.
Later in the 1930s my Uncle Vince built a cabin near Badger Pass, which separates Rattlesnake Creek drainage from the Grasshopper Creek drainage. The cabin was near the old Bannack - Virginia City stage road, about halfway between Bannack and Argenta. During the summer of 1938 I lived out there helping my Uncle Vice prospect for gold, and roamed the country around the Pass.
So I know the Bannack - Virginia City country very well. And of course I took in the legendary stories of the righteous Vigilantes who vanquished the evil road agents, whose chief was said to be Sheriff Henry Plummer. Sometime about 1935 my father decided to introduce a new brand of bread at his bakery, which was to be machine-sliced and automatically wrapped with wax paper, a great innovation at the time. He chose the name VIGILANTE for his new bread, although the bakery continued to be the City Bakery. It was about this time that the VIGILANTE ELECTRIC COOP was established. I remember my father tell me about the 3-7-77 code which the vigilantes supposedly pinned on the bodies of the victims they hanged. Of course no one at the time regarded the men who were hanged as victims, on the contrary they were as evil as could be, wore black hats in the movies, whereas the vigilantes were righteous and wore white hats. I know of no one at the time who questioned the handed down version of the vigilantes.
To find out how I began to doubt the righteousness of the vigilantes, click on the NEXT button.