Distinctly Montana Magazine

65 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m by LIN VARGO B ACK IN THE DAY, WHEN MONTANA WAS A ROUGH AND TUMBLE PLACE TO LIVE, there was one man named Sam- uel M. Russell, better known as the Powder River Kid, the fastest gun in the Northwest. Sam had left home in the 1870s, at the very tender age of about 13, to go to Texas for about eight years. There he started his reputation as a good cow puncher before traveling north to Miles City, Montana, where his sisters had settled with their families. He was well liked by most and proved his worth as a cowboy on several outfits, and also enjoyed practicing quick draw shooting. During the 1880s and early '90s, Sam's reputation grew as a fast gun. While in the Powder River country, he got his nick- name of the Powder River Kid. At that time, this area was well known for frequent gun battles, and Sam's nature led him to be- come the counterpart of "Billy the Kid." By 1892, Sam ended up in Billings with other cowboy friends, and had gone to Lottie Miller's place in the red light district. Sam was a little smitten with one of the girls, so when fellow cowboy Harry Turner, who was a stranger in Billings, start- ed quarreling with one of the girls and was beating her, she screamed for help. Sam realized that it was "his girl" and immediately came to her rescue by going up to Turner and hitting him over the head with his revolver. Turner turned around, a bit stunned by the blow, and grap- pled with Sam to get his gun. The gun discharged and Turner slowly fell to the floor. Sam and witnesses claimed it was in self-defense, and a knife thought to belong to Turner was discovered on the floor close to him. You might say that the moral is, don't take a knife to a gun fight! Now, Turner was a cowboy in the Miles City area and was known as a very quarrelsome man. It was thought that Sam and he had had run-ins before the incident at Lottie's. Sam left Lottie's place quickly, but Billings constables went after him. They found him on a ranch near the river bank and he surrendered to them. Well, the Powder River Kid went to trial and was sentenced for murder in the second degree. The judge made Sam an example because there had been a case of murder six months before this one, and the murderer had been sentenced to 20 years on that account. The judge stated that since this had not deterred murder in Billings, he sentenced Sam to 25 years in the state pen. Sam started his prison sentence on October 8, 1892 at Deer Lodge Penitentiary, which back in the day was overcrowded and was tough. Warden Conley believed in his prisoners working off their sentences, and decided to tear down the 12-foot wooden fence that surrounded the prison and put up a grand four-foot- thick sandstone solid perimeter, and also build a new cell log house to address the overcrowding of the prison. Also at that time, the warden started a prison work camp where the prisoners would live and be "hired out" for both public and private work. The program was very successful, and those inmates that did well enjoyed more freedom with no chains and no cells. Meanwhile, Sam's sister Lucy Russell-Hill had started a cam- paign to get her brother pardoned. In the end, most of the elite and powerful in Miles City, includ- ing ex-judges, attorneys, merchants and even the Governor of Tennessee, the Honorable Benton McMillin, wrote Montana's Governor Smith to have Sam pardoned. There was even support Powder River, Montana

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