Books and Stories by Carol Buchanan

Cy Skinner's Saloon

Cy Skinner's saloon stands about in the middle of present-day Bannack, or what is left of the roistering old town. At the side of the building, you can see how the ground slops up a small hill. The Bannack Cemetery is on a higher hill behind it, and from the top of this small hill the road leads back into Hangman's Gulch. Skinner's Saloon

Somewhere on this slope toward Hangman's Gulch, a respected elder of his tribe stood talking to his neice when Skinner shot him for the heck of it. Skinnr later paid for this blatant murder. The Vigilantes hanged him at Missoula (then called Hell Gate) in January 1864.