Treasures From Bill's Warbag

Born in the sandhills of Nebraska in 1876, Bill Huntington cowboyed his way north to Montana—riding broncs, chasing cows, hauling freight with half-broke horses, entertaining audiences with his own Wild West shows, and filling a warbag full of colorful memories of a West long gone. Bill and his wife Ella eventually settled on a small piece of property on Indian Creek east of Billings, Montana. At the dinner table and during any other gathering Bill attended, he loved to tell stories from his past. In the early 1950s, when Bill was in his 70s, he was persuaded by his family to share those memories with scores of enthusiastic Western readers and history buffs by way of two autobiographical books illustrated by the famous Montana artist, J.K. Ralston—They Were Good Men and Salty Cusses and Both Feet in the Stirrups. Bill also wrote a weekly newspaper column called “Bill Huntington Spins A Tale” that was so popular it continued to run for four decades after his death in 1969. In 2006, Bill’s great-granddaughter, Linda Grosskopf, put together Bill’s biography, together with four dozen of his stories and some family photographs, which book was published under the title Treasures From Bill’s Warbag. This 200-page, hard-cover book makes a great addition to personal Western libraries as well as a marvelous gift.