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We’re spending a few days looking at some of the
state’s history concerning alcohol. Yesterday we discussed the Bismarck
booze bust of 1907. Today, we’re backing up a couple decades. On
this date in 1877, Bismarck saloonkeeper, Peter Branigan*, was supposed
to be executed. He had killed a soldier named Massengale in his saloon
on Christmas and was almost lynched by angry soldiers that night. Branigan
was found guilty in February, escaped from jail in March, and was caught
in Audubon, MN, a few weeks later.
Bismarck was considered one of the toughest towns in America in the 1870s.
But, northern Dakota Territory was referred to as the Northwest back then,
and much of its history never made it into the history of the Wild West.
Bismarck’s most lawless era began in 1870, when hundreds of railroad
workers began advancing the Northern Pacific from Duluth. As the workers
moved west, so did those who entertained them and took their money, including
prostitutes, gamblers, saloonkeepers and drug dealers. Collectively, they
were called the “End of the Track Gang.”
When railroad construction stalled in Bismarck, these “people of
bad character” settled in for the duration. Two spots became particularly
dangerous – Whiskey Point, opposite the Missouri River from Fort
Abraham Lincoln, and “bloody Fourth Street.”
Two of the gang’s worst were Dave Mullen and Jack O’Neil, former
partners of Limpy Jack Clayton. In fact, Limpy got his nickname after
Mullen shot him in the leg for testifying against him in Duluth. All three
moved on to what was becoming Jamestown, and then Mullen and O’Neil
split off and went to Bismarck to open a saloon.
No love was lost between the fort’s soldiers and the End of the Track
Gang. Even though soldiers were Mullen and O’Neil’s bread and
butter, Mullen said he never “missed a good opportunity to shoot
or rob a soldier.”
One October night in 1873, a gambler named “Spotty” Whalen shot
and killed a soldier out at Whiskey Point. The civilian authorities didn’t
do anything about it, so a group of soldiers decided to take matters into
their own hands. In what became known as the “Battle of Mullen’s
Corner,” the soldiers tracked Whalen to Mullen and O’Neil’s
saloon. Mullen answered their knock by opening the door and shooting a
soldier named Dalton to death. The others returned fire and Mullen quickly
passed into the next life.
In the winter of 1876-77 a man named Lawrence shot another soldier out
at the Point, and the victim ended up dying of lockjaw. On the heels of
that came the death of a 7th Cavalryman by a man named Edwards while the
two of them were trying to clear out Edwards’ saloon at closing time.
It was in this same time period that Branigan killed Massengale in his
saloon. Unfortunately for him, nobody was interested in the details. A
Bismarck Tribune article later explained: “He was convicted because
public sentiment demanded a sacrifice. No matter what evidence might have
been brought in his favor to show that the killing was done in self defense,
there was a disposition to convict in order to stop the shooting scrapes
which were then common incidents at Bismarck.”
Branigan’s case marked the end of Bismarck’s most violent era.
Gold was discovered in the Black Hills that year, and “end of the
trackers” who came to Bismarck were now catching the stagecoach to
Deadwood – the “next” toughest town in America.
Source: Frank Vyzralek, The Last Stand of the “End of the Track Gang”,
A Peek at Justice on the Dakota Frontier, North Dakota Humanities Council,
January-February 2000; Bismarck Tribune, June 23, 1882
* Branigan can be found under these alternate spellings: Brannigan, Banigan
and Bannigan
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