No buts in Butte

Not long after 9/11, I was forced briefly to consider bringing a weapon on board a US passenger aircraft. In case Homeland Security is reading, I hasten to add that the circumstances were innocent.

The weapon was a family heirloom – a policeman’s baton, from circa 1900. And I had no intention of using it on anyone.

It was given to me by my cousin Rosie, from Butte (pronounced “beaut”), Montana, when I flew there to meet her for the first time. She had inherited it from her grandmother, who in turn received it from her brother, a man named Frank McNally.

He was the policeman, and left it behind as a memento before heading home to Ireland sometime in the early years of the 20th century.

I never met that Frank McNally, whose long life wasn’t long enough to see me. But one of the few things I ever learned about him from his only son (my father) was that he had been a “deputy sheriff” in Montana – one of tens of thousands of Irish emigrants who once flocked to that part of the American west.

Fascinating detail

To someone who grew up playing Cowboys and Indians, this was a fascinating detail. I imagined Frank snr facing down outlaws of the wanted-dead-or-alive variety – the old Montana was surely well stocked with such people. So in one way, the baton was a disappointment – suggesting a more urbanised environment than the romantic ideal.

Still, when I was trying to trace my ancestor’s movements via a local history museum, the curator assured me cheerfully that “a lot of deputy sheriffs got shot”. Although then again, he may have been telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. He had already asked if I would consider donating the baton.

Anyway, I thought better of putting the antique on an aircraft that time, even as checked luggage. I posted it home instead. Since when it has been half-forgotten and still unused (pending the arrival of burglars) on top of a press. But I took it down and admired it again the other day, as news of Butte’s latest claim to law-enforcement notoriety reverberated.

His name is Robert O’Neill, one of the town’s large Irish diaspora.

And after the secret threatened to emerge by other means, he has publicly identified himself as the US navy seal who, three years ago, fired the fatal shots at Osama bin Laden.

Until now, Butte town’s best-known son was the late Evel Knievel. I suspect O’Neill has just displaced him.

Montana is a beautiful state, as any of you who’ve been there will agree.

But as well as being probably the most interesting part of it, Butte is in stark contrast with most of its surroundings – the Big Sky country, Little Bighorn, and so on. In its heyday, after all, it was a resolutely industrial city, thanks to the copper industry that made and then broke it.

When still the “richest hill on earth”, before the first World War, it was also unusual as a hotbed of radical politics. Then there was a long decline, when the vertical mine shafts gave way to an open-cast pit, which swallowed up the old neighbourhoods, including Dublin Gulch, until even that method was no longer sustainable in the 1980s.

There are two Buttes now – the new town, down on the flats, where most people live; and the old town, up on the hill, which retains most of the atmosphere.

The streets there are still named after rocks and minerals – Gold Street, Diamond Street, Porphery Street, etc (my cousin lives on Granite Street). The remaining mine frames are illuminated at night. A few stately buildings hint at the great city it was becoming a century ago. And among the more interesting tourist attractions is the Dumas Brothel, now a museum and the last link to a once-famous red light district, said to have been the second largest in North America.

Senior officers

There is some controversy locally (and in Washington) about whether O’Neill should have gone public on his role in the Abbotabad operation, even though some more senior officers had written books about the event, and his name was already leaking to journalists.

But the ethical considerations aside, he fits right in with his birthplace's rugged self-image. Interviewed by the Montana Standard, a bar owner in old Butte was unsurprised by the local origins of bin Laden's nemesis. "Naturally, it would be," he said. "If you want something done, call a Butte guy."

@FrankmcnallyIT