Death in The West: The Gang Kills Frank Little
Earlier this month I stumbled upon a podcast called Death in The West created by brothers Chad and Zach Dundas and another pair of siblings Erika and Leif Fredrickson. It was produced and released in 2020 and has gained a following and rising popularity for over a year now.
The gist of the podcast is this: Frank Little, a Union organizer for the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), is murdered in Butte August 1, 1917 by a group of masked (but not socially distant) assassins. The murder is never solved but is a pivotal moment in the budding industrializing of United States of America.
The show opens up with the retelling of the night Frank was murdered and my perverse mind for some reason turned the whole scene into a reimagining of a cold opening to an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (hence the title of this blog). I tend to do that when confronted with tough material, I like to release the pressure, crack a joke or make fun of it in order to shed the skin of uneasiness. We all have our quirks.
The show goes into Frank’s life, the history of mining in Butte, the evil empire that was Anaconda Copper Company, the thousands of hard rock miners and the unions that represented them in Butte and other mine locations, the labor wars, Butte’s Copper Kings, conspiracy theories on who orchestrated Frank’s death and everything in between.
Upon first listen, I binged the ten episodes (roughly an hour each) and during that listen the show effected me in a strange way. Being a native son of Butte, the death of Frank Little is a well known tale but knowledge is surface level for most Butte folks. I heard of it first in high school when my Montana History teacher half-heartedly tried to teach us about it. All I took away from Frank’s tale was that he was hung from a train trestle west of Butte (not true by the way, it was in another location) and that Frank’s fingers were gone from being drug behind a car before his lynching (that may be true, although I hope not).
Other than that, that’s all I really knew about Frank and his two weeks of being alive in Butte. If I had to summarize Frank as a person it would be this (and all of this new knowledge is thanks to this podcast, so thank you DITW crew): Frank Little is basically Steve Rogers without the super soldier serum, a Captain Butte America if you will. This guys gets his ass kicked on a daily basis, thrown in jail all the time, degraded and humiliated constantly and every time he is kicked down, he stands up with union brochures in hand and says “I can do this all day”.
He was a champion for the littlest of the little-man/woman (no pun intended Franky boy). He wanted to unionize women, minorities and international workers before it was cool to support those groups. Frank was a socialist before it was cool to be a Bernie Bro. Frank was from Oklahoma (his only flaw) and he believed so passionately in his work that he literally died for it. Frank was drug behind a car until his knee caps came off and swung from a rope so people like my grandfather Ed could make more money, be guaranteed a safer work place and know there was some kind of pension waiting them when their time was up down in the mines. I think the world needs more people like Frank Little.
His body is buried in Butte at the Mountain View cemetery with a nice view of the airport I suspect. Why the IWW chose to bury him in Butte America is beyond me. They say on the show it was symbolic reasons, to “be buried on the battlefield” as if he was Stannis Baratheon or something. I don’t know, if that was my son or brother I would want him home with his family but that is just me.
Well I have to say this show was amazing. The level of detail they go into with the labor and union wars of the turn of the 20th century is mind numbing. The interviews they play from real miners and labor officials who lived in those days makes me wish I had a time machine.
I wish I had one because I would go back in time to talk to my Grandfathers. My paternal grandfather Jack Truzzolino was a restauranteur, food processing plant owner and operator in Butte for decades just like his father and his father before him . He had to have some good stories about conspiracies surrounding Frank’s death. Then on my mothers side, my grandfather Ed Gardipee was a fucking miner! God damn I could have picked his brain but no, the young snot nosed Nathan probably bugged him about WWE and Elvis Presley (not probably, he did).
So as I listen to this series twice through, I noticed a few points that I want to expand on in this blog, to make some comparisons of what life was like in America then and how eerily similar it is compared to today’s world.
They say on the show a quote that goes like this.
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
Well in the next few points I will make, you’ll see how well 1917 and 2021 rhyme. Like some real Eminem and Lil’ Wayne shit.
Point 1: What about Frank Little?
When you finish the whole series of Death in the West: Season one (season two coming in early 2022), the crew at DITW do their best to answer the big question of who killed Frank. I won’t spoil what they surmised but after listening I had my own theory and here it goes.
The US was at war with Germany in what was called the Great War. The US needed support from its people to help win the Great War which meant the draft was initiated and of course the armies needed materials to feed the war machine. One of those crucial materials was copper.
So my theory is this. Who killed Frank Little? I think the US government authorized the hit and the Anaconda Company facilitated the act through hired guns, corrupt cops and Yes Men within their own company in order to ensures that crucial materials like copper continue to be mined, smelted, shipped, and crafted into war time bullets.
Woodrow Wilson was President at the time (also another great podcast about his wife called EDITH! is a must listen, so damn funny) and President of ‘The Company’ (Anaconda) John D. Ryan took a leave of absence from the Company to work for President Wilson in Washington DC to help with the war efforts. You don’t think Ryan was in the President’s ear saying shit like, “Woody we got a problem man, the fucking miners are striking because of this tiny fire that may or may have not killed a few folks but that’s not what is important, this crazy union organizer named Frank Little, this IWW crum bum is anti-war and he is going to buzz Butte’s bell if we don’t take care of him now, get what I’m saying?” (Eye Wink, Eye Wink, Click of the Tongue)
Or something similar to that.
Anyways Wilson would have been like “Fuck yeah, handle it Ryan my man and now lets go figure out how to kill some Krauts!”
Or something similar to that.
So that’s my theory. Ryan convinced the President that Little was a problem and got the nod from the king himself to handle the anti-war union organizer.
What most likely really happened is what we call Occam’s Razor; The simplest answer is probably the right one. Listen to the podcast and surmise for yourself.
How does this tale compare to today?
If you haven’t read up on the case of a missing Native woman named Jermain Charlo up in Arlee Montana, then please do so and check out the amazing podcast called Stolen in which they dive deep into her case.
They do an amazing job going over that case and in the end, Occam’s Razor seems to be at play again. When you see it, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. I am sure justice will be served on that case at some point in time, amazing people are working on it and won’t give up till she is found.
So like Jermain Charlo, Frank Little was killed by people that at the time, everyone knew who it was, common sense and some evidence all pointed to those particular guilty parties. They just were not prosecuted for a number of reasons but like I said before, we all knew who did it and they know that we know. There is some consolation in that I guess.
Point 2: Corruption on Capital Hill
DITW does a quick dive into the political system that was Montana in the early 1900’s and it was so tainted and corrupted that the legendary word smith Sam Clemens AKA Mark Twain had a word of two to say about it. Discussing William A. Clark, a Butte Copper King and Senator of Montana, Twain had this to say.
Twain wrote that Clark's corrupt campaign activities had so sweetened corruption in Montana that “it no longer has an offensive smell.”
Clark basically paid his way into the Senate and was later refused his seat by Congress due to these actions. He actually pulled a fucking crazy move where the Governor of Montana was to appoint his replacement when Clark was kicked out of Congress. So Clark made up a reason for the Governor to be in San Fransisco (I believe he was an engineer or surveyor of some kind) and the Lieutenant Governor (who was in Clarks pocket) appoint his replacement instead. Any guesses who the Lieutenant Governor appointed? Yeah, he appointed Willam A. Clark. What a power move! It didn’t work of course but shit it was a heck of a try. He didn’t stop there folks, he later tried again and paid enough money again, to be elected, ‘legitimately’ this time and became Montana Senator in 1901.
Obviously I don’t need to make a ton of comparisons to today’s world on how corruption in the Government still happens. Heck just start at 2016, which wasn’t that long ago and you’ll find some dirt. Even the idea of super-packs, the Citizens United Act seems kind of like a bad idea these days. The political candidates of today don’t need to be wealthy people like Clark or William Randolph Hearst. They just need to be good enough at fund raising and bullshitting now and these packs can throw millions at their campaigns, effectively squashing the voice of the people and who they truly want in office.
Point 3: Civil Unrest
DITW is mainly about Frank Little and his death but in my eyes the main theme is about the fight for rights of workers, especially miners. The team at DITW dive into multiple labor wars related to the mining industry in Colorado, Idaho, Arizona and Montana, all highlighting the struggle that the workers, their families and union officials went through to secure better wages, safer work conditions and retirements. Many many many people died. One incident that happened in Butte that I had no idea about was called the Anaconda Road. This incident lead to multiple strikers being shot in the back, by Anaconda gun men. Imagine that shit happening today? Amazon workers striking in Seattle and as they are marching Bezos hires some hired guns to shoot them as they flee? Unthinkable then and unthinkable now. Yet the Company got away with it. How? They had power, influence and leverage. It doesn’t sound much different than big companies like Kellogg or GM flexing their muscles to keep the workers oppressed. Amazon, which is not unionized, is a whole different story for a whole different blog post.
The fourth amendment gives US citizens the right to assemble. The DITW pod describes times when that right was restricted. Just as it was in 2020 with the home in place mandates. These things happen over and over, to both sides of the isle.
And this folks is the real crux of the story. This to me is the biggest take away I have from all of this podcast and I guess every news story I have read in the last 8 years. That these injustices happen to everyone, regardless if your mascot is a donkey or an elephant.
The fight for free speech, right now, is being fought and championed by the right. In 1900, it was being fought by the left. The fight comes for all of us. I wish we could all see that we are more alike than not. That deep down we all want the same things. We want to be free. We want to believe we have free will in the US. We want to feel safe in our country. We want a voice. We want the ability to vote for representatives we believe represent our beliefs.
All of those things seem to be restricted at one point or another, on both sides in our short history of the U.S. Those rights are worth fighting for, hopefully peacefully but that may be asking a bit too much.
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One other take away on this post is the radical groups of today and yesteryear being infiltrated by nefarious people.
The Unions were infiltrated by the Pinkertons, an independent detective agency, hired by these massive companies to infiltrate and fuck shit up. One famous one being author Dashiell Hammett, winter of the Maltese Falcon and a book based on Butte called Red Harvest.
Today, it’s been proven that FBI has infiltrated groups like the Proud Boys and Anitfa. I don’t have much else to say other than that the government or outside interests will continue to stick their noses in something they want changed or feel threatened by for reasons unknown to you and me.
One big example that DITW pointed out was when the Anaconda Company got fucked by the Chilean government when the new President of Chile Salvador Allende nationalized all their copper mines, most owned by the Anaconda Company, and took them back as their own. They told Anaconda to go fuck themselves, something that had never happened to the Company ever before.
Well, Anaconda didn’t like that much. So they asked the U.S. government to intervene. Thus starting the CIA’s involvement in South American politics for decades to come.
And on and on it goes.
Point 4: What happens to Butte now?
The city takes a turn. Silver mining to Copper mining - Underground to open pit.
Down and out to the new cultural art center? The home of weirdo’s and hippies? Missoula is too expensive and Bozeman fucking sucks. Artist need a cheep place to live to do their work. Why not Butte?
So what happens to Butte now?
Butte in the early 1900’s was on the rise and looked like it would never stop growing. Butte now is searching for a new identity while staying true to its persona of hard working, tough and enduring.
Another great podcast (I know I’m full of them today) is called Richest Hill, produced by Montana Public Radio. The host Nora Saks explores every detail about Butte and the Superfund Site that sits to the north known as the Berkley Pit. It’s a great listen if you have any concern or love for the future of Montana’s environment. The cleaning of the mine waste of Butte is literally the future of western Montana.
The EPA, ARCO and Butte Silver Bow came to a clean up decision in February 2020 that set a date of 2028 for completion, revitalizing Silver Bow Creek into a recreational area that Butte can be proud of. On the completion date, that will mean Butte will be taken off the Superfund list once and for all. Of course that doesn’t mean all of the contamination will be gone so there is a plan for continuing remediation as well.
Being taken off the Superfund list, I think, will mean big things for Butte.
The 2020 Covid Pandemic made Butte a hotspot for Zoomers looking to get out of the big city and into the country where their dollar goes a lot further.
I have a feeling that a place like Butte will go one of two ways. It will become a cultural hotspot like Missoula was in the 60’s and 70’s. A new wave of artists will flock upon the cheap housing, cheap studio space, hundreds of empty buildings, apartments and studio spaces just ready to be inhabited by starving artists, writers and musicians. I personally would love to see that happen. Butte can be creative, vibrant and experimental while still maintaining a persona of hard working and tough SOBs. New York City has that vibe, or at least did, why not Butte?
The other way I can see Butte turning is the way of big corporations. I’ve heard tell that a lot of big business like say a Home Depot stay out of Butte simply because she is on the Superfund Site list. Once that name gets scratched off the list, it’s open season for mega corporations to come in and snatch up all those abandoned building in uptown and all of the open retail space on the flats. Not to mention the open and available land on the outskirts of Butte like Ramsey, Basin, Rocker, Nine Mile and even Whitehall. It’s all open for the taking and you know how big business loves just buying up real estate. Shit look at Town Pump, that’s all they do now is buy up real estate.
So Butte is due for a change. I hope her leaders and community members choose wisely, otherwise the fun may be over for the locals when all the Zoomers take over, just like my fair city of Missoula, where all the weirdos that made the town cool can’t afford the rent. Choose wisely council men and women and don’t waiver Mr/Mrs Chief Executive, Butte needs you. You know sure as hell the big wigs in Helena and DC are making deals as we speak to capitalize on Buttes new found hope.
Point 5: The Butte Connection
DITW solidifies one major theory that I have known for a long time. Everyone owes Butte a big ol fat Thank You and that includes Russia, France and Britain. That goes for Edison who, thanks to Butte, had an abundance of copper to make his first power plant called Pearl Street Station in New York City.
When I say a thank you I mean a big thank you. Say it to everyone who lives there and had ever lived there. It’s not an easy place to live, I’ll admit that but god dammit if we don’t try to make the best of it.
Butte has given and given and given and she has also polluted and polluted and polluted. So, it is nice to see the city get a nice win for once with this mine clean up deal made in 2020.
So assuming you read this and said what I told you to say…well on behalf of Butte America…
You’re welcome.
Point 6: The Sixth Floor
When you listen to DITW they will mention the Sixth Floor as a placeholder for the Anaconda Copper Company. The Sixth Floor is in reference to the Hennessy Building in uptown Butte where the Company’s headquarters were located.
I don’t think it comes as much of a surprise on how intertwined the Company was with the Montana government. So much so that when a new bill was introduced in the MT legislature, 5 copies get sent out to various government entities. One of those copies use to go straight to the Sixth Floor, giving the Company a heads up on every single bill before anyone in Montana’s congress could read it. Wild shit.
The company also did a fantastic job at controlling the narrative. They owned and operated newspapers in Butte that would spit propaganda that was pro-Company and anti-union. Evil Santa Clause Jeff Bezos tries to do the same with his small but quaint newspaper called the Washington Post. Good thing no one reads that one.
The Company really did draft the first blueprint for many more mega corporations to use their considerable wealth to buy politicians to sway rulings and laws in their favor.
The debauchery goes both ways as well. Then and now you can find corporations blatantly shlepping away for their choice of candidates in all sorts of industries. The one that is most appalling to me is media.
We all know that Fox News and CNN have their sides and that kind of goes with the territories but locally, here in Montana we would hope to see some kind of unbiased coverage of the news wouldn’t we? That’s what I thought before I worked in media about 5 years ago and DITW drove that final nail home with exposing how media worked in the days of the labor wars.
Even here in Montana we have to read with two sets of eyes when consuming the news. Sinclair Media came into Montana a few years back and was not shy about their thoughts on politics and another big corporation with newspapers all over the state, Lee Enterprises, has the same power to push readers sails with the power of their blowhard editors.
I wonder if it was worse back in Frank Little’s days or now? Or maybe it’s just about the same. As it was said before, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Shit I’m starting to think it does more than rhyme, it just gets a new coat of paint each year, just a slight shade darker than the year before. I am starting to think this is a case of Queen and Vanilla Ice. Same old tune, dressed up for new generation.
Stray observations.
DITW highlights some wild characters. The one I found most fascinating was Ed Morrissey. He was chief of Detectives for the Butte Police Department and he was bad as they come. Rustin Cohle from True Detective once said “Of course I am dangerous, I am police. I can do terrible things to people, with impunity.” Well that was Ed Morrissey.
Frank Little had the biggest funeral in Butte history. So large that even Evel couldn’t jump it.
Whore houses were called Hurdy Gurdy joints. What a funny phrase.
During WW1 most Irish sided with Germany because they believed if Britain lost, then Ireland would maybe finally be free. I had no idea that was the case.
William Randolph Hearst, who backed Copper King and President of the Anaconda Company Marcus Daly with his first mine in Butte, was portrayed in the series Deadwood and after listening to DITW I believe that show portrayed him accurately.
Frank Little’s killers were never caught but in DITW they point out that it was suspected that the sons and daughters of Butte took care of that problem themselves. That sounds about right to me.
Final thought - when Anthony Bourdain came to Montana for his show ‘Parts Unknown’ he went to the Montana celebrity hot spot of Big Sky…No wait to Bozeman (nah he chose your little cousin Livingston instead and rightly so)? No that ain’t right…Yellowstone? No. He went to Butte. That’s right. We are the most interesting story in this state and will continue to be for decades to come. Again on behalf of my homeland Butte America, you’re welcome.
Nathan Truzzolino is the author of
‘Middle of The End: A Novel’
Available for purchase on Amazon.com