New Episode: Who the Hell Was Montana Frank?
The posters for Montana Frank's Wild West show, tucked away in the Montana Room of the Bozeman Public Library, revealed little. Comely cowgirls, covered wagons, Indians... but no dates, no cities, and no picture of Montana Frank himself. Just scenes generic enough to stand for almost anything broadly "Western."
So who was he?
Frank McCray claimed to be the first white child born in Butte, a Pony Express rider, a Buffalo Bill scout, a friend of Charlie Russell, a member of seven Indian tribes, personally acquainted with the recently abdicated King Edward VIII, and the owner of a pistol with ten notches on it. He also claimed never to have learned to read or write, despite telling a Minneapolis reporter that his parents had taught him both.
Episode 4 of Distinctly Montana Stories follows the trail of Montana Frank through decades of newspaper clippings, vaudeville circuits, a five-reel motion picture, a disappearance into silver mining in Mexico, and a final bid for fame at the age of 90. Along the way, the episode explores what the Wild West show actually was — from Buffalo Bill's 5.1 million spectators at the Chicago World's Fair to Buckskin Ben, whose entire production consisted of himself, his horse, and his wife, who sold tickets and played the drums.
Montana Frank wasn't famous. A newspaper said as much in his obituary. But his story gets at something true about the hunger for legends in a country still inventing itself — and the strange, tenuous partnership between a liar and an audience that wanted to believe him.
Who the Hell Was Montana Frank? is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, wherever you listen to podcasts, or using the embedded player below.
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