Contentious Swan Valley Massacre subject of talk

A historical mass shooting that still reverberates is the subject of a presentation Monday, Sept. 15, in Kalispell.

The story begins with the 1908 Swan Valley Massacre, when game warden Charles Peyton attempted to arrest a hunting party from the Flathead Reservation near Holland Lake. The confrontation resulted in a gun battle that left the warden and four Pend d'Oreilles dead.

The Confederated Salish-Kootenai tribes pushed for criminal charges against Peyton and his companion, while defenders of the game warden jumped to his defense. The Missoula County Attorney eventually declared the investigative files as lost. 

But the issue would not die, and in 2001 the tribe succeeded in getting Peyton's name excised from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, D.C. The tribe is also responsible for a historical marker on Montana 83 with its version of the event. 

Local history buff Rick Hull will look at the issues festering in 1908, as well as the missteps that resulted in a violent showdown.

The presentation is at the monthly meeting of the Northwest Montana Westerners, a local history group. It starts at 7 p.m. on the second floor of the museum, at 124 2nd Ave. East in Kalispell. Cost is $5 for the general public, with members and youths under 16 admitted free.

Hull is a former newspaper reporter who has made other presentations on local histories, including the Demersville lynching and the story of local American Japanese.