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50 YEARS AGO • JANUARY 16, 1969

BRONCO LIZ, TF DANCE HALL QUEEN ALSO

DROVE THOMPSON PASS FREIGHT WAGON

The heavy snow and low temperatures being experienced in Sanders County this winter had a parallel 85 years ago, according to Will John.

The account of that winter in 1883 appears under the title, “Frontier Cheer,” and it is reproduced below.

Snow and the temptation of new gold diggings in the Coeur d’Alene mountains in Idaho combined to make a little town close by the falls in the Clark Fork River one of the brawlingest tent villages in the west.

The year was 1883 and Thompson Falls, named for the nearby cataracts in the gorge of the Clark’s Fork of the Columbia River, was hardly more than a wide spot in the westbound trail along the river. Then came the discovery of gold just across Thompson Pass in the Coeur d’Alenes. (French-speaking fur traders named the lake in the mid-1800s. Legend says the traders believed the local Indians to be sharp traders and they called the lake Coeur d’Alene meaning “their hearts were sharp as an awl.” Coeur means heart, alene is a punch for leather.)

Winter comes early to the high mountains of western Montana and the Idaho panhandle and the snow stays deep and long on the high passes. There was newly completed railroad transportation into the area for Northern Pacific had finished its transcontinental line the previous fall. Prospectors, adventurers, and gold camp followers got off the new passenger trains at Thompson Falls hoping by some miracle to reach the diggings before snow closed the passes. Most of them didn’t make it. As winter progressed, more and more of these gold-camp-bound people poured into Thompson, overtaxing all facilities and adding to the regular small population a vast flood of motley people, law abiding and lawless, honest and dishonest, but with one purpose only – getting rich at the gold mines.

While winter fogs still shrouded the river, 5,000 persons awaited the coming of spring that would loosen the snow pack and open the way to the mines. Since there was nothing else to do, the crowds turned to amusement, and this meant drinking or gambling, or both. Naturally, there were those quick to take the opportunity.

It is claimed that 20-odd saloons operated in the little town that winter, which meant about one parched tonsil emporium for each 250 citizens.

Another building erected very quickly to meet a popular demand was a dance hall, which entertained everyone until night closed in on the activities. When its rooms were opened for hotel service, it can be imagined that some of the guests seeking only rest probably experienced some short nights at high rates. It paid to be the social type in Thompson Falls that long winter.

One of the most famous of the saloons was reputedly the “Shades,” a fitting name for a place with a seedy reputation. More than one of the newcomers, who came to town with nothing but a bedroll and a grubstake is believed to have lost everything he owned in this place. Best known of the gamblers at the “Shades,” all of whom were reputed to be fast men with the pasteboards, was a man named Jack McDonald. He and his compatriots probably did much better at the gambling tables than the average gold-digger did after spring came and he reached the Idaho diggings.

Queen of the dance hall girls was an entertainer named Bronco Liz, who in summer put on heavy men’s work clothes and drove a freight wagon over the divide into Idaho. Presumably she worked both ends of the freight trail, but there is no record of that. It is known that Liz came to Thompson Falls from Dodge City, at that time one of the toughest places in the west. Whether she was asked to leave or just migrated west with other adventurers is not a matter of record, either. While the heavy-booted dancers whirled the pretty girls across the floor to the tune of Buffalo Gals or the Arkansas Traveler, Liz was picking up the gold and silver faster than any miner could hope to do on a legitimate claim.

All these goings-on could have but one result, and the citizens stood for them just about a year. Then they organized a Vigilante committee, based on the successful Virginia City law enforcers of two decades earlier. The Vigilantes mailed out promises of hanging in the winter of 1884 to a selected 25 men. Twenty-four of them immediately left town, but one of them, Jim Hardy, chose scornfully to remain, and he hid out in a saloon.

In a short time the Vigilantes found his hiding place and, since his time was long overdue, voted to hang him on the spot. At the last minute, the Vigilantes decided instead to let him go if he would leave town at once. It didn’t take any second urging, and the Vigilantes even took up a collection to help him on his way. The population of the town, reduced by 25, breathed more easily, and Thompson was on its way to becoming a lumber center in far western Montana.