A Little Bit About a Great American
“Slain by
capitalist interests for organizing and inspiring his fellow man”
When we visited in 1996, an IWW member in Butte made sure that
Frank Little’s grave always looked nice and had flowers. It’s in a beautiful
graveyard right before a mountain range. It was still possible to make out the
railroad trestle where they hanged his body, even though the tracks had been
ripped up. I saved a few railroad spikes as mementoes and took a few photos.
Over at the Silver Bow Museum, they have a lot about Frank Little’s last few
days of life because they saved the newspaper coverage. The labor palace was
still functioning, and the union people there know quite a lot about those last
few days. In fact, Frank Little’s death is pretty well documented. But not his
life!
In Butte, they
sell bright colored postcards with a little bit of Montana history. At bottom,
men carry “IWW” signs and confront an authority figure. On the far right, an
automobile is parked by a railroad trestle, where a man hangs.
Click here for more photos and
ruminations
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