The Galloping Gallows: This execution scaffold in one of the few original hanging gallows remaining in the United States. It?s design is that of the traditional ?trapdoor? construction and has the very unlucky thirteen (13) steps leading up to the trapdoor platform. This gallows was built in 1920 near Forsyth, Montana and was used for the first time on September 3, 1920, when Alfred Lane was hanged in Forsyth for the murder of a local rancher, Mr. Harry Thread. After that hanging, the gallows was put into service as the official hanging scaffold for eastern Montana and was used whenever the need arose. In order to serve it?s purpose as a mobile unit, each part was designed so that the gallows could be dismantled and it would then be galloped to the new site, thus arose the nickname ?Galloping Gallows?. Seven men dropped through it?s trapdoor to their death. It is now retired and sits in a burned out theater in a prison museum in Deer Lodge, Montana.
They should un-retire it and send it to Washington....seven would be eclipsed very quickly---maybe 535 congressmen? Or 100 Senators? Great history on the shot. Jim (and yes...the Cubbies are ok...)
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{K:31373} 1/19/2004