Life & Death at the Mouth of the Musselshell

Montana Territory 1869-1871-The Diary of C.M.Lee, Gunsmith, Merchant.
Edited by H. Duane Hampton
This big book presents the dramtic story of a small collection of hardy, would-be frontier emtrepeneurs in 1869 through 1971 hoping they could make their tiny outpost at the point where the Missouri and Musselshell Rivers meet, called Fort Musselshell, the headquarters of the upriver steamboat trade on the Missouri River- and thereby become the main shipping point on the river for the numerous mining camps beginning to dot the Montana Territorial landscape. The saga of Fort Musselshell lived its life out to the last entry of Lee's journal... One Pre-publication reviewer, in fact, had this to say about the book: Hampton's an astute historian and his journal -- brings to lifethe many interesting characters Lee includes in his narrative. I've never read a better account of the West on the cusp of settlement. The book is a vibrant, detailed, overwhelming saga of optimisn lived out in the face of a constant threat of immediate, violent death on the Montana Frontier.