Rattlesnake Jake and Longhaired Owens: Uncovering the Truth of Lewistown, Montana’s, Infamous Fourth of July Shoot-Out
Author(s): Averi Jones
Year: 2025
Summary
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
On July 4, 1884, two outlaws known as Rattlesnake Jake and Longhaired Owens came to Lewistown, Montana, and caused a shoot-out that forever changed the town's history. Immediately following the shoot-out, folklore surrounding the Independence Day event rapidly developed, inspiring ghost tours, reenactments, and parades. With only 17 eyewitness accounts to lead the narrative, this project seeks to uncover what really happened that Fourth of July afternoon through ethnohistorical and ethnographic methods, osteological and aDNA analysis of two human crania, and a digital reconstruction of the two outlaws themselves. ***This presentation will include images of human remains.
Cite this Record
Rattlesnake Jake and Longhaired Owens: Uncovering the Truth of Lewistown, Montana’s, Infamous Fourth of July Shoot-Out. Averi Jones. Presented at The 90th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. 2025 ( tDAR id: 510724)
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Record Identifiers
Abstract Id(s): 52242