"Tom Dunn" aka Ed Starr, Saco, Montana
Shown above is a letterhead for the The Valley Saloon, a drinking establishment in the small but violence-ridden town of Saco, Montana. It identifies as the proprietor a man named “Tom Dunn.” In January 1897 he was writing to a wholesale liquor dealer to complain about shipping charges on his recent order. But “Dunn” never existed nor would the saloon owner using that alias live beyond the following year. When the man calling himself Tom Dunn about 1893 rode horseback into Saco, no one in that ramshackle town, shown above, knew who he was. He had sufficient money to buy a local saloon, became known as its genial proprietor, and even, some said, got married and settled down. “At the time of his death,” reported one Montana newspaper: “He had a fairly good reputation among his neighbors and others who knew him.” “Tom Dunn” was, in truth, Ed Starr, a member of several well known outlaw gangs. According to Helen Huntington in her book, War on Powder Ri