Before my arrival in Montana, I defined the term “vigilante” as part of a headline on Hard Copy—a trigger-happy husband avenging an adulteress wife was a vigilante, a gas station owner performing retribution for an unresolved robbery was a vigilante. The term certainly leaned toward the pejorative, even edging close to prejudiced: where I came from, a vigilante was a epithet for white trash. Little did I know how much Montana loved its legendary vigilantes, and how to them, the word rang synonymous with true justice.
Before the formation of the Montana Territory in 1864, the area lacked law enforcement, or laws at all for that matter. In a region where miners struck gold with shocking frequency along Montana’s gulches, with thriving bordellos lining the streets, thievery and homicide ran rampant through those Rocky Mountains. The infamous road agents of Virginia City, known for robbing and eliminating travelers along the mountain passes, had become a significant concern to the citizens of the surrounding towns. A vigilante committee was formed to seek out the source of these atrocities and bring them to justice in the unpatrolled, perilous area. Lead by prosecuting attorney Wilbur Fisk Sanders and Chief Justice Sidney Edgerton, the vigilante committee hanged 21 road agents and other offenders, including the infamous Sheriff Henry Plummer, the mastermind behind the road agent operation.
The story of the vigilantes is certainly a source of pride to Montanans, and, dare I say it, they almost worship the legend. A topic of some debate, some scholars identify the vigilante’s trademark number, 3-7-77, as the amount of time a criminal had to get out of town before the vigilantes arrived, as the dimensions of the grave the vigilantes would dig for the criminal, and as a number in the Masonic Order for a sacrosanct ritual. Nevertheless, the number is sacred: 3-7-77 graces the sides of the Highway Patrol cars in Montana.
The celebration of the famed legal warriors doesn’t end there. One day in early May, Helena high schools dismiss their students before noon to prepare for the much-anticipated annual Vigilante Day Parade. An 80-year-old tradition, and the longest-running high school parade in the country, high school students submit history papers on the subject of their designated float. They then proceed to build and dramatize the vigilante legend, which seems to never collect dust or feel out-of-date. Bizarrely enough, some of these floats actually re-enact the hangings. Imagine a shaggily-bearded Henry Plummer look-alike hanging from a noose as the float passes by. This past May, 166 historical-themed floats flooded Helena’s Last Chance Gulch.
How does a term find such regard and a place embedded in local history in one region, and morph to become a word of disrespect across the Mississippi? In other words, how do we go from parade to Hard Copy? I imagine that the people of Montana, to some degree, still consider themselves a tad wild, and respect the active role vigilantes took in establishing their internal law, what has come to be understood as Montana law.
It definitely has something to do with approaches to history, and perhaps with shame. In Illinois, we attempt to hide our history—the election scandals, images of mob killings, the century since the Cubs last won the World Series, etc. For Montanans, the vigilantes are their prehistory, and to some degree won the area its recognition as a Territory. However, I still wouldn’t want to get pulled over by an officer with the vigilante trademark affixed to their sedan.
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