The Montana Stranglers in Dakota Territory - Paperback

by Ron Berget (Author)

The saga of The Montana Stranglers in Dakota Territory embodies the violence and vigilantism of the Old West

In the early 1880s, desperate characters left over from the fur trade began robbing arriving settlers in the wilderness of Eastern Montana and Northwestern Dakota Territory. Gangs of horse thieves sprang out of camps from the Musselshell in Montana, along the Missouri into Dakota Territory, up into Mouse River-Dogden Butte country and ending at Turtle Mountain. Cattlemen and homesteaders formed vigilance committees, including Granville Stuart's Montana Stranglers, resulting in the violent death of fifty-four people from September 1883 to December 1884. They weren't all guilty and there were probably more. Author Ron Berget shares this thoroughly researched, true story of the Montana Stranglers' bloody pursuits throughout the northern plains.

Author Biography

Ron Berget grew up on the Crooked Lake mentioned in this book. With a fish and wildlife management degree from the University of North Dakota, Ron went to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Devils Lake, North Dakota, and later Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in North Texas. He left the USFWS to attend and graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary. Ron pastored churches in Minnesota for several decades and is currently Asia director of a worldwide pastor training organization.