Distinctly Montana Magazine

80 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R 2 0 2 5 the Old West" or on tour performing them at radio stations back east, like Minneapolis's WCCO, WTCN, and KSTP. While in Minneapolis, inciden- tally, he reported to a local reporter that he had never seen a town so full of "disrespectful young squirts" who made fun of his hair, which he claimed never to have had cut in his life. Instead, he simply tore it out: "when his hair gets too long he wraps a clothespin around a lock at the proper length, another clothespin around the hair ends, and yanks it off." Montana Frank supposedly responded to the mockery hurled by the squirts of Minneapo- lis by challenging them to a fight. So far, the article said, no one had taken him up on it. In another human interest piece from the Spokane Spokesman-Review McCray revealed that he had been writing a song on the subject of the personal life of the recently abdicated King Edward VIII: "Prince of Wales of England,/ Crowned Edward Eighth One Day,/ Fell in love with an American girl/ and gave his heart away." "King Edward has done no wrong," he concludes in the final verse of the song. After all, he had said in another interview, he was "personally ac- quainted with England's ex-king and admires him with a warm sincerity." If Montana Frank's exaggerated claims were exaggerated, hell, wildly exaggerated, who could blame him? In the early days of the American experiment there was a hunger for legends, for a mythology of our own. There was also, concomitant to that urge, a great number of folks who were looking to become legends through any means necessary. Outlaws chose violence. Others, like Buffalo Bill, chose to put on a show. Some legends are born, and some are made. Some are forced into being by marketing, publicity, and advertising. If Montana Frank never quite be- came a legend, it wasn't for lack of trying. THE WILD WEST SHOW: FROM BUFFALO BILL TO BUCKSKIN BEN Buffalo Bill opened his Wild West for the first time in 1883, and some twelve years later Frederick Jackson Turner famously declared the Ameri- can frontier closed. Speaking at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, Turner held that the fron- tier was central to and essential for the American spirit - something to con- quer, and be conquered by. By then, however, the frontier had gone from a curtain that descended across the continent to a patchwork of shrinking parcels of wilderness that would, all too soon, give way to settlements and, ultimately, to civilization. Civilization was at once the end-goal and the boogeyman haunting America. Huckleberry Finn, when faced with the prospect of civilization, preferred to "light out for the territories." Many others felt the same way, but lacked the hardy constitution. They might have to settle for a stack of dime novels or a Wild West show like Buffalo Bill's, or Montana Frank's, if one happened to be traveling through, and in so doing they could, hopefully, capture at least a little of the enchantment and adventure. As you can imagine, the experience of seeing a Wild West show could vary a great deal depending on the size of the show, your location, what year it was, whether you were a crowned head of Europe, etc. The biggest "HIS LIES, PERHAPS, WERE NOT SO MUCH UNFORGIVABLE SINS AS FEATURES OF HIS STAGE PERSONA." Photo included in Minneapolis Newspaper, 1937

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