Missoula's Third Island Skinner's Loot

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Tiredman

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Oct 15, 2016
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Well this story of Cyrus Skinner has been around for many years. It has been said he wanted to escape to Canada after Plummer and some other gang members were lynched. Supposedly prior to his being caught and lynched he buried somewhere around $200,000 in gold. There are reports it was nuggets and dust with a small amount of coin in a bucket. Then there is a report of it being gold bars. Once certain author has covered this one and based upon one of their works which seem to have no supporting facts to back it up, we will be checking this one out further. Also a claim that the bucket of gold coins was found, is worth checking into as well since the finders name was use.
But the spot where all this is said to be buried does exist.
Third Island.jpg
 

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Now the one author had placed Missoula in eastern Montana, which it aint. They had a claim of Plummer hauling around his share of the loot on mules which caused shoot outs with posses, that I never heard of before, and also apparently never made it in any records. Then there was the Durkel Gang, which never seems to have any records of so far, but the DHS ranch was real. So as one can see, everything has to be checked out. Could there be some treasure stories out there that are nothing but creative writing?
 

another old report of a cache is in the area of Fort Missoula, some thought it was south down river a bit. This is the 200 pounds of gold storyFort Missoula.jpg I believe.
 

Back to that finder of the bucket of gold coins, newspapers searches show nothing on an individual by that name given. For supposedly being a long time resident notice of his death did not turn up either. Two other names provided also have to be check out, but it isn't looking too good right now.
 

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0 Results Nationwide on the Word "Durkel" Misspelling Possible.
 

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Most newspaper articles go back to Dimsdale and Langford, we did get some that were interviews of other early Montana residents. We use the chroniciling America site and one other. Durkel is a name, we found no hits on it. A certain author has names in his stories, but we find no such people in searches.
 

I do trace back the history of the stories. One author 1993, next backwards 1985, next back 1975, another 1950, then there are the old newspapers. Studying the treasure stories history is interesting too.
 

Jeff you will be surprised at what we have so far.
 

Oddly later tellings of this treasure, I sadly have to disregard since things don't check out historically or from a common sense point of view. In fact it is down right laughable. An example if said individual was wet from wading to the island in the dark and dug up a bucket, why did they run home to discover it was full of gold coins? Wouldn't you check right then? If it was nothing valuable you would keep searching after all your out there in the middle of the night for a reason!
 

Tiredman said:
Oddly later tellings of this treasure, I sadly have to disregard since things don't check out historically or from a common sense point of view. In fact it is down right laughable. An example if said individual was wet from wading to the island in the dark and dug up a bucket, why did they run home to discover it was full of gold coins? Wouldn't you check right then? If it was nothing valuable you would keep searching after all your out there in the middle of the night for a reason!
Click to expand...

Does seem a Bit odd. Common sense would say if you dug up a Bucket & it was heavy,
Odds are it would probably be because it's filled with dirt.

Now if he originally Buried the Bucket, or at least had good Intel
he trusted that the Bucket was filled with gold.
So much so that he went straight to itt in the dark.

And when he dug it up it had a Lid.
Add to that at best he had a Lamp, at worst a Candle & the Moon for Light.
the obvious thing would be to Get back to home base, where ever that may have been.
 

I guess having night hunted so much in the past, I figured it wouldn't be too difficult to tell, "it feels like a coin" in the dark. Maybe the author had it worded somewhat odd. But then again it could be my twisted mind, after all wasn't I once free2dtect?
 

Strange it seems there are no old newspaper articles on the story in archives. Some versions give names of folks involved, but they also can not be found with searches. Still Penfield and Terry had mentioned the story in their books. Terry I think got it from Penfield, but where did Penfield get his info. No valadition that we can find for a supposedly well known story.
 

Of the group hung at Hells Gate by the Vigilantes and buried, their graves might be just as easy to find even though they were leveled in the 1890's by a plow. The last building of Hells Gate might be just as easy to find, even though it was moved to a ranch to be used as a chicken coop years ago. Several caches claimed found near Hells Gate years ago. But still limited evidence such as old articles exist. Still we pull up odd facts that are interesting.
 

Hell Gate Hangings
When the Vigilantes tracked down the members who were on their list they caught Cryus Skinner and a few others at Hell Gate and hung them there. But they missed Bob Zachery who had fled shortly before. Zachery was tracked to O’Keeffe’s near O’Keeffe Canyon. O’Keeffe surrendered his guest not knowing he was wanted for his crimes at the time of his stay. O’Keeffe oddly didn’t want Zachery hung at his place because he didn’t want to be seeing any ghosts. So the Vigilantes took Zachery back to Hell Gate and hung him there. Little remains of the old town called Hell Gate, I did find that supposedly there is an old chicken coop on a ranch which is said to have been one of the few remaining buildings, but even that claims was years ago. Also I read there were four graves which were at the corner of an old rail fence, but even these were plowed under years ago and turned into a wheat field.
 

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