Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters The Shooting of Bill Strong - Can it now be told??

One of the stories that has always kind of fascinated me in Elmer Keith's Hell I Was There was in the chapter entitled Ranch Life, where Elmer related the story of "The Shooting of Bill Strong."

Apparently Strong was a good friend of Elmer. They were on a hunt together with two Montana state officials in October 1919. Elmer tells how Bill Strong confided that he had a funny feeling about the hunt, a feeling that Elmer came to share, and just a little later Strong was hit in the back by a .30-06 while standing just a few feet away from Elmer, shot by one of the state officials. Elmer had his gun out and was ready for trouble, and in his telling of the affair it seems pretty clear that he was highly dissatisfied with the conduct of both of the state guys in the aftermath of the shooting, and that he did not believe that the shooting was an accident. He didn't have a whole lot else to say about it. In the book there is a picture that is captioned as being from that hunt; the two men with Elmer are not named, could the man on the left be Bill Strong? And the guy standing with the rifle and the big gut, I could see him being some kind of state bureaucrat.

It's been a hundred years, and everybody associated with incident is long gone. I know there are still posters on this forum who knew Elmer Keith personally, can anyone shed some light on this affair? Did Elmer ever loosen up over a sip or two of whiskey, years later, and tell what he knew/thought/suspected??

Thanks, namsag.

Not an answer, but here is Elmers writup of the event in a 1926 American Rifleman

Thanks for sharing Mike

Elmer said there was some wrong doings that Strong was aware of. The two with them were involved somehow. That's why the bad feeling. Elmer indicated there was a meeting and something said at the lodge and certain people were not on the ballot any more. Or did I forget something? Be Well, Rustyzipper.

"A good telescope sight helps a lot in discerning the nature of partly hidden game."

Good thing for Elmer that the internet/Campfire wasn't around in those days! His poor ass would have been excoriated far beyond being able to sit on a horse.

No doubt,

Even a thread on elk rifles has the keyboards slinging insults.

@mike454 - awesome, thanks! I did a little searching of the net but I was not able to find anything about the incident. I am not that great at searching. That is a great article, although the telling is a little different, it is interesting that Elmer does not infer foul play the way he did in Hell I was There. In the article he acknowledges that the guy who shot Strong was trailing an elk cow; that is not mentioned in the book. Presumably the two other guys were still living in 1926 and almost certainly not when Hell I Was There came out in 1979 (I think).

I like the way he ascribes most hunting accidents to city slickers, and I love the story of the New Yorker who shot the Yellowstone rancher's mule! Thanks for posting the article.

I've read all of Elmer's articles in the AR and when you see him recount episodes from those articles 50 later they tend to follow the same trend you noticed. The facts are generally the same, but he seems more likely to call people out in the later writings.

That makes sense. Later in life when they were gone he'd be more inclined to tell the truth.

I grew up reading every article written by Elmer, and have his book.....Hell, I Was There! There is zero doubt that Elmer helped form my opinions about rifles and cartridges! memtb

Hear Elmer:

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/afc/afc1986022/afc1986022_sr27a02.wav

Another one:

https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/afc/afc1986022/afc1986022_sr27a01.wav

Ol Elmer, those recordings are priceless!

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Awesome stuff Bristoe, thanks!

ABSOLUTELY......priceless. I never thought I get to hear Elmers voice and no doubt " Hell I was There".

IIRC in "Hell, I Was There", EK wrote that the two men who were with him and Mr. Strong were the State of Montana Treasurer and the Treasurer's senior accountant or clerk. EK wrote that Strong suspected them of embezzling while he was away, serving during WW1 and that he was killed to hide the crime.

Hard to believe there was no investigation if there truly was a reasonable possibility of a motive for the killing.

Not so hard to believe.

It was 1919 and there was allot of stuff going on around that time. A hunting accident with two state workers both claiming an accident? And probably Keith as well.

Closed deal.

-Jake

Some time back, when a bunch of Elmer's guns were auctioned off, Bill Strong's 1911 was among them.

Elmer once told an interesting war story (don't remember which book or article) involving Bill Strong, a few Germans, a shellhole, and his 1911 (which I presumed to be that one). One of those "if guns could tell tales" sort of things. I would like to have bid on it (starting bid was pretty reasonable, but it still went pretty high, given the history), but was pretty broke at the time.

I was thinking of Keith's story of Strong's alleged murder not too many months ago, wondering if anything ever had come to light, and thinking that even if those involved were dead by 1979, their families or some politicians would have raised a stink, but that was before the internet.........

In one of the two volumes of Gun Notes (his Guns Magazine columns published after his death), Elmer mentions still owning Bill Strong's 1911. He tells the story that Bill was an officer serving behind the lines in WWI and was called to the front because they were short on officers. Bill was then involved in trench fighting and told Elmer that he fired 7 magazines in one battle and never missed a shot.