Ross Peterson

The rest of Il Conte Biancamano's several hundred crewmen arrived at Fort Missoula a few days later. So did many other Italians thereafter. The majority came from other captured ships. Some, though, came from New York's World Fair. Authorities interned waiters, like Cipolato, and other workers from the exhibition's Italian Pavilion.

In ’66, local studies estimated around 300 pot smokers, mostly at the university. By 1968, that number neared 2,000, according to The Missoulian. For the first time, Missoula’s medical clinics saw patients suffering LSD-caused panic and anxiety. A few “acid casualties” wound up at Warm Springs state mental hospital, the paper claimed.

And he wrote the Montana he saw. For all Western literature's transcendent fly-fishing sessions and sublime auburn sunsets, he balanced with, say, inclement weather and human corruption. Besides crime fiction, Reid is well-versed in writing poetry, literary fiction, and, now, nonfiction. Writing has been a consistent force for most of his life.

By the late 1800s, over 200 saloons, like the Graveyard, Cesspool, and Bucket of Blood, served a population of around 10,500. Plentiful establishments furnished gambling. And red lights burned, according to the Butte classic Copper Camp, on East Galena Street, where French Erma, Austrian Annie, Jew Jess, Mexican Maria, and Mickey the Greek worked.