This faded hand-tinted photograph hung on the back wall of Johan Ostrom’s office in his Bannack Funeral home for years. It was taken at the death viewing of one of the town’s most notorious characters, Belligerent Bob McDickle. The photo has seen the worst for wear but it shows one of the largest historical events in the towns checkered history. The information below was gleaned from old newspaper articles and oral history from some of the older residents in Bannack Montana.

Here lies the remains of Belligerent Bob McDickle, well I guess it can be said here stands the remains of Belligerent Bob McDickle, as he is leaning against the Ostrom Funeral Parlor and ice house in his new forever home. The other men in the photo were instrumental in finally bringing justice to a very bad man as they helped drag Bob’s body down to the funeral parlor behind the deputy’s horse. It wasn’t much involvement but they made the best of it anyway claiming that they coulda got shot if he’d a twitched or something. They included left to right, the town deputy Jess Clanton on the horse in the left of the picture, the assistant deputy Bill who tied the knot around Bob’s foot for easy dragging, Belligerent Bob McDickle in the casket, the U.S. Marshal in town for the week holding old Bess his double barrel shotgun, a guy that just liked to hang out with everybody whose name is not listed on the back of the photo, and J.T. Suttleman, a wealthy rancher, who stopped by to see if Bob was as dead as everyone said he was.

There is a large window in the front of the funeral parlor where normally the deceased would be placed behind the window for viewing by the townsfolk. This was to allow the citizens to view the dead man but not touch him as there were often souvenir hunters who would lop off a trigger finger or an ear thereby gaining free drinks at the saloon for showing off their new found bragging rights. One of the ways the funeral director would enhance his income was by allowing any curious citizen to come in and have a close up look at the deceased for a dime or small pinch of gold. Macabre as this may seem to us today it was a popular thing to do back in the 1800’s. For an extra 25 cents a lock of his hair could be purchased as long as said hair held out. The dead man was stuck in the window until interest died down or he became too intense to have inside anymore. He was then carted off to Boot hill to be interred. The expectation was that he would eventually sink down thru the earth until he came to his final hot but well deserved resting place. This was a somewhat dubious honor reserved for the worst that society could produce and not how regular good god-fearing citizens were treated when it was their time to shuffle of this mortal coil. As there were plenty of bad men at this time in history the window became known as the window full of dead men.

A few words about Belligerent Bob McDickle. He wasn’t just a desperado, or a stone cold killer, he was, it was that he was just plain mean. It was said he would bite his ownself if there wasn’t nothing mean to do. He would walk down the street and shoot peoples chickens just to see the feathers fly, and if the owners came out to complain, he shot them too. Early on people used to ask him where he was from, a pretty common question in these parts, but as Bob would shoot them for asking they just quit asking.

Now in case some of you might have some misguided feelings that maybe Bob was a product of a poor childhood, or he was mistreated by the nuns in the Holy Order of Smacking Orphans School for Boys where Bob spent part of his youth, know this, once a cute little girl walked by with her new puppy on a leash and the puppy not knowing who he was approaching licked Bob’s boot. Bob shot that puppy right there in front of the towns ice cream parlor and when the little girl cried too hard, well.. I guess you can figure out what happened next. Bob was a mean man.

Now one would think that someone like Belligerent Bob McDickle would get his comeuppance in a spectacular shoot out, or killed by a posse, or some really cool western way but that wasn’t how he met his end. Instead one Miss Cassie LaPelt was shooting at a rat in her boudoir at the Rung Bell saloon and the errant bullet went thru the window and nailed Bob right between the eyes. Killed him in mid-step. Bob didn’t even know he was dead until he hit the boardwalk. She didn’t even know she did it until later when the sheriff said “Cassie, darling, good shot”. She received high praise for her providential accident and was even acknowledged by some of better townsfolk which was unusual given her social work as an employee of the Rung Bell saloon.

That was the end of Belligerent Bob McDickle, feared outlaw, rouge, and thoroughly bad man. The latest resident in the window full of dead men.