P a g e 5 G h o s t T o w n s a n d H i s t o r y o f M o n t a n a N e w s l e t t e r The Winters’ ranch had been squatted on by Dan Tressler about 1890. He and his wife separated and she was taken to a friend’s ranch on the Missouri River by John Curry, whom she planned to marry. Tressler sold the ranch to Jim Winters and his half-brother, Abram Gill. Mrs. Tressler thought she was entitled to the property and persuaded John Curry to get it for her. He sent Winters a noticed to vacate within a certain period or face the consequences. Winters, knowing full well what the consequences would be, kept a loaded rifle behind the back door of his house. On the date specified, John Curry was seen approaching the Winters’ place on horseback. Winters fired and Curry lay dead with a bullet between his eyes. Within six months, Winters was in his grave a short distance from the grave of John Curry. He was shot from ambush as he stood on a porch. It was regarded as a revenge killing on the part of the Curry gang. As for Curry, we are informed by a story appearing in a late 1899 issue of the Harlem Enterprise, which was to become the Malta Enterprise a year later, that Loney Curry had purchased a half interest in a saloon owned by a man by the name of Bowles. Within a few weeks he was joined by a man he introduced as Bob. The news story refers to him as Curry’s brother, but he was a cousin, Bob Lee, of Missouri. The two men bought the remaining half interest in the saloon known as the “Club Saloon, Curry Brothers, proprietors.” They remodeled and painted the building and appeared to be settling down as Harlem businessmen. The fact that the “Club Saloon” was closed and locked one early January morning caused little comment until it was learned that the business had been sold hurriedly the previous night to a George Ringling. The story related that a Pinkerton detective named Sayles had trailed Loney and Bob Lee to Harlem as suspects in the holdup and robbery of a Union Pacific train near Rock Springs, Wyo., on Jun 2, 1899. Six men were implicated, including Loney, Kid Curry and Bob Lee. A reward of $3,000 for the apprehension of the men was posted. The sudden departure of Curry and Lee from Harlem followed a tip-off by a fellow gang member that their whereabouts had been traced. The Harlem newspaper also revealed the fact that a substantial sum of money collected for a raffle, the proceeds of which were to go to a local charitable project, had, apparently, been appropriated by the fleeing recent saloon keepers. An Associated Press dispatch on March 7, 1900, carried the news that Loney Curry had been killed by law
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