How Deadman's Gulch Got Its Name

A local history column, written by Historian Shane Dunning. Shane may be reached at [email protected].

In southern Rosebud County, on private land just off the east side of the Tongue River (near Birney), is an isolated ravine with the ominous name "Deadman's Gulch." The origin of that name has been lost to anything resembling "official" history, but thankfully the story still exists in the rich oral history of the area.

Back in the 1880's the area was very sparsely populated by white settlers. The first cattle herds from Texas were just beginning to enter the Tongue River valley, and the area was a crossroads for the various local Native American tribes. Some of the first white settlers of Eastern Montana were, in fact, engaged in fur trapping and trading, not cattle. Two such trappers had established a home in an isolated draw just off the Tongue River, miles away from the nearest white settlement.

Their isolation required extraordinary measures for security, and the trappers made a clever use of a unique geological formation deep in the gulch. Among several sandstone cliffs jutting the valley was a large sandstone on flat ground, approximately ten feet high, fourteen feet wide, and six feet deep. In the direct center across the width of the stone, about a foot off the ground, was a hole that an average sized man could fit through. Several pictures of this rock are included with this story.

The trappers built their simple one-room cabin on the flat ground snugly behind this rock and cleverly made it so the cabin's only entrance was through the hole in the rock. The cabin had no windows and (like most residences of the time) a dirt floor. They built a fireplace at the opposite end of the cabin for warmth and cooking. Entering the cabin through the hole took not insignificant effort and several seconds to accomplish.

As has been mentioned before, this part of Southeastern Montana was historically used as a crossroads for various Native American tribes in the region. One day the cabin was occupied by only one trapper, as his partner was away for several days and not expected back anytime soon. To his surprise he was visited by a group of four Native Americans of an unknown tribe. The trapper, rifle in hand, warned the party to move on. Eventually, the angry visitors left to continue their journey and the trapper breathed a sigh of relief.

A short time later the trapper, sitting comfortably in the cabin was alarmed to discover that at least one of the Natives Americans had returned and was making his way through the entrance. Alone and fearing for his life, he took an axe and struck the intruder behind the head as it peeked through the cabin side of the rock's hole. The intruder was dead, but the trapper could not be sure that his companions would not come back searching for him. It was even possible they were outside the cabin at that very moment. As his partner would not be back for several days, he did the only thing he could think of. He pulled the dead man inside the cabin and buried the him in the dirt floor of the cabin until his partner returned.

Luckily, the trapper remained unmolested until the arrival of his partner. Together they dug the body up out of the cabin floor and re-buried the corpse in the sand rock cliffs on the opposite side of the gulch. In a few years, as more settlers came into the area, the ravine was named Deadman's Gulch for this extraordinary incident. The cabin was eventually abandoned as the fur trade was replaced by cattle. The story does not end there, however.

The Brown Cattle Company bought the large 4D Ranch a few miles away from the site, under the management of Albert G. Brown, Sr. Among the cowboys then working for Brown in the 1920's was Irv "Big Bones" Alderson. Alderson would later establish the "Bones Brothers" dude ranch on Hanging Woman Creek with his two brothers. Knowing the story of the trapper's cabin, Big Bones searched the sand rock cliffs opposite the cabin and eventually found the body of the Native American intruder. Morbidly, Alderson brought the corpse's skull as a trophy to his employer Albert Brown, who placed it on the mantle in his library. It remained there for decades, even after Albert G. "Buster" Brown, Jr. took over the 4D. My father worked for the 4D as a young man, and he remembers the skull in the library. He also clearly recalls the refusal of Buster Brown's Cheyenne housemaids to clean in that room.

The location of the skull is today unknown. Its existence is possibly the only remaining evidence of the Trapper's cabin and the Tale of Deadman's Gulch. All that remains today is an unusual rock formation with fire pit rocks tucked away in an obscure valley with an enduring name. Most importantly, these are the type of stories we are losing every day as oral histories from our older generation remain unrecorded and their value unrecognized. The history of this area can only be preserved if efforts are made to preserve them.