Spirits of Montana Territory

---

Thirsty, rowdy patrons -- trappers, traders, prospectors, and buffalo hunters, these, hustlers and the random cut-throat. They came out of the foothills, and boisterously raise their glasses to the great elk on the wall; Piney Mite which was a melding of two meanings;  of Pine Top called the giant, 12 point elk's head gracing the wall above the piano, Piney-Mite, in reverence to the larger-than-life pioneer-founder of this way-out-there hub where most anything could happen and usually did, "Pine Top", a giant man of legend -- run-away slave who escaped the deep south and didn't stop running until he came to this place about 170 years ago, in the middle of nowhere to the central part of what wold be claimed a decade later by the United States of America as the Montana Territory. 

Here, Pine Top established himself as a free man. Where with no experience or education, he built by hand what would become a famous wilderness oasis and soon legendary. The busy trading-post, whiskey bar and bath house, with rooms to let is where a piano played day and night, and the drunkards brawling never stopped -- until, it is told -- it ended one fateful night in a tragic fire that left no remains of Pine Top's oasis nor Pine Top. Nothing to be found but ashes and nails that weather and wind then scattered everything left no trace.

But to this very day, if you venture out there--in the middle of nowhere, on a full-moon night, you might meet up with two very agitated, territorial-spirits who don't like visitors. 

Locals say you're wise to keep your distance--and don’t dare attempt to play that piano.