Celebrating History: Raid on Shorty Young saloon a debacle

By Emily Mayer

Tongues were wagging and rumors rampant in Hill County 100 years ago, not just on one front, but on two and both being joined at the hip. Due to last week’s Internet outage, I wasn’t able to get last week’s column out on time, but these two stories promised plenty of discussion at home coffee klatches and local taverns in the days of yore. Hopefully, you will find them as interesting as I have.

In the Oct. 5, 1918 edition of The Havre Plaindealer, a headline ran “Sensational Story Is Badly Exploded-Disagreeable Features in Border Raid Case, Miserable Fizzle Disgusts Intelligent Citizens of County” with a lengthy account of what the Plaindealer could find out about the raid of a saloon located, of course, near the Canadian border. As you may recall, the raid involved an assistant in the state Attorney General’s office, Grorud, and some local men he was either working with or who were forced to work with him. The article states it is now getting “true facts,” stating that rival paper the Havre Daily Promoter had a “sensational version” in the previous Sunday’s edition but had gone dead silent in subsequent days. The raid itself and the Promoter’s lack of conducting proper interviews — in this case deliberately not interviewing local officials including then-County Attorney Victor R. Griggs — brings the Plaindealer’s assertion that the raid was meant to make Griggs look bad more into focus. The Promoter claimed that Griggs had received “repeated complaints” about the Border Saloon, but Griggs told the Plaindealer he had received no complaints, nor did he send word to those at the saloon that the raid was coming, as the Promoter alleged. Apparently, complaints were made, but not to his office. Griggs stated he had found that the complaints had gone to the commissioners, but they failed to notify Griggs. He said, in part “… the county commissioners never turned the complaint over to me and the whole scheme is merely a continuation of the efforts on behalf of the attorney general’s office and C. R. Stranahan to make the public believe that my office is unwilling to prosecute cases of any kind.”

Griggs further stated that if Grorud from the Attorney General’s Office truly had viable proof of wrongdoings that evidence would have been brought to Griggs, but they did not, instead making “a sorry mess of it and now they are trying to put the blame upon the county officials who were not consulted and did not know anything about the matter.”

The Plaindealer spoke to the commissioners, in turn confirming that complaints were made but the commissioners didn’t pass that information on to the county attorney’s office.

The Attorney General’s Office then conducted its own investigation, finding that its own deputy, Grorud, had conducted an “improper and illegal” raid along with illegally deputizing two men as deputy sheriffs, arming them and ordering them to “shoot to kill” anyone who interfered with the raid. As a consequence, Grorud and the two men were arrested. This whole saga ticked off the attorney general, Sam Ford, and he decided to call in the Internal Revenue Service (a.k.a. “The Revenuers”) but they, of course, found no violation of any federal laws.

Long-time readers of this column will also remember that 1918 was not only The Great War being fought on foreign soil, but it was also an election year. Guess who Griggs’ opponent was for county attorney? None other than C. R. Stranahan. The Plaindealer called out that the whole raid was an effort on Stranahan’s part to bolster his campaign, which ultimately failed on technical grounds.

And the owner of the Border Saloon? Christopher William Young … also known as “Shorty.” Who, in turn, quickly reclaimed his loot and by the time a proper warrant to search the site was made and officials arrived, “They secured as evidence a one-quart beer bottle, containing about three drinks of whiskey.”

C. R. Stranahan wasn’t only in on raiding Shorty’s place up north. He was also leading a revolt of local Republicans, splitting the party into two factions: the Republicans and the Non-Partisan League. The story followed into the Oct. 12, 1918, edition of the Plaindealer, with the Plaindealer claiming leaders of the Non-Partisan League as “crook,” stating, “At any rate the republican party has at last been purified, it is declared.”

It appears the Non-Partisan League is made up of not only disgruntled Republicans, but at least one Democrat whose bid for sheriff failed, the Rev. E. J. Huston, who was also part of the Border Saloon raid debacle with Stranahan. It is curious that the Hill County Republican County Convention and the Non-Partisan League County Convention took place on the same day and in the same town, that being Gildford.

The Border Saloon raid also continued in the Oct. 12 edition, this time with the contempt charges on Grorud being dropped and District Judge Rhoades ordering Hill County Attorney Griggs to file information against those listed in Grorud’s affidavits, with Griggs stating he could not because his office didn’t have those names as the court records were still in Grorud’s possession. It was reported Grorud left Hill County in the middle of the week, leaving Griggs’ office to clean up his mess. As for the second raid of the Border Saloon, it seems that Grorud got a bunch of farmers together to go with him, but sheriff’s deputies decided to go to the site a different way, remembering the debacle that occurred the first time. This, of course, left the farmers out all night waiting in vain, who apparently were recruited to burn the buildings at the Border Saloon, but warnings were issued by the sheriff not to commit the crime.

Grorud’s trial of conducting an illegal raid, however, was not dropped and trial was scheduled for the following Tuesday. Of his efforts, the Plaindealer stated “That Mr. Grorud came up to clean up Havre has been heralded over the entire state, when in fact he went in to the country forty-five miles to do his work. … Havre has been badly advertised over the state and up to date nothing has been accomplished and Mr. Grorud has evidently thrown up his hands and quit.”

Yes, folks, more on this later!

Another article of note was tucked away on the back pages of the Plaindealer, but is very important.

SPANISH INFLUENZA IS NOT SERIOUS IN HAVRE

With between 20 and 30 cases of Spanish influenza in Havre but none of a serious type, Dr. Hamilton, city health officer believes that with proper precautions there is little danger of the epidemic assuming serious proportions in this city. With the schools, churches and all public meetings suspended under the quarantine order applying to the whole state and preparations made for combatting the disease it is believed that the epidemic will rapidly subside in Montana. The public library is also closed and the return of all outstanding books is requested.