Celebrating History: Long George Francis
Don Greytak Collection
By Emily Mayer The parallels between today and a century ago are uncanny. People were dealing with the aftereffects of a major pandemic-the so-called Spanish flu-as well as looking forward to ringing in a new decade. Economics were also not that great, with a flux of men coming back from the war only to find a dwindling supply of jobs, not to mention both grain and livestock prices tanked due to gluts in the markets coupled by drought in parts of the United States. There is one tragedy, however, that thankfully seems to have been avoided, and that is the unexpected loss of a prominent comm.
A blizzard blew hard across the Northern Montana prairie Christmas Eve 1920, and the last of the stateâs notorious cowboy outlaws struggled to see the road that would take him to his sweetheartâs schoolhouse 30 miles northwest of Havre.
Long George Francis had loaded a borrowed truck with Christmas presents and a box of apples â parting gifts before he turned himself in to serve a six- to ten-year stretch on a dubious charge of horse stealing. Not that he was an altogether innocent man. He was rumored to have helped himself to unbranded calves and to have purloined a horse or two over his more than three decades in Montana.