When Fifteen Montana Men Became Legends of the Old West

The widely circulated version of “The Gathering,” with famous names written beneath the photograph. The photograph is genuine; the sensational identification is not.

A Remarkable Photograph – If the Caption Were True

The photograph seems almost too good to be true. Fifteen men are arranged across the porch of a large frame building at Hunters Hot Springs, Montana. Numbers have been placed beside several faces. Beneath the image, handwritten names identify Wyatt Earp, Theodore Roosevelt, Doc Holliday, Morgan Earp, Liver-Eating Johnson, Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, Bat Masterson, Judge Roy Bean, and rodeo rider Ben Greenough.

The picture is usually dated 1883 and promoted as “The Gathering” or “The Most Unique Picture Ever Taken.” Copies have circulated for years through souvenir shops, online auctions, social media, Pinterest, and Old West websites. The promise is irresistible: lawmen, outlaws, a future president, and other frontier celebrities all caught together in one extraordinary photograph.

There is only one problem. The gathering never happened.

The old photograph itself is real, and it was taken at Hunters Hot Springs. The famous identification attached to it is a later invention. A few simple dates make the claim collapse, while research into the people associated with the resort points toward a far less sensational – but much more believable – answer.

The Dead Man in the Picture

The quickest contradiction is the man labeled Morgan Earp. Morgan was shot and killed in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, on March 18, 1882. He could not have posed for a Montana photograph taken in 1883.

The alleged identifications of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid create another problem. Robert LeRoy Parker, later known as Butch Cassidy, was born in 1866. Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, the Sundance Kid, was born in 1867. In 1883 they would have been approximately seventeen and sixteen years old. The men numbered 7 and 8 are plainly adults, not teenagers.

The supposed Morgan Earp is also unconvincing when compared with authenticated portraits. So are the supposed Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Judge Roy Bean. Facial resemblance can be subjective, especially in a soft, copied photograph, but the chronological contradictions are not. Morgan Earp’s death and the ages of Parker and Longabaugh are enough to disprove the advertised lineup.

Who Were the Men?

Research centered on Hunters Hot Springs and the nearby Livingston and Springdale communities identifies the group as local men connected with the resort, area businesses, and Park County government. The proposed identifications are:

Number	Identification
1	Albert A. Rich
2	Frederick W. Wright
3	John A. Savage
4	Unknown
5	P. J. Nolan
6	Dr. Andrew J. Hunter
7	Franklin W. Rich
8	Unknown
9	Zadock H. Daniels
10	Charles A. Burg
11	Unknown
12	Alfred H. D. “Harry” Britton
13	Unknown
14	Unknown
15	Cyrus B. Mendenhall

A researched identification key replaces the celebrity names with men connected to Hunters Hot Springs and the surrounding Montana community. Several faces remain unidentified, which is preferable to filling the gaps with guesses.

These names fit the setting. Dr. Andrew Jackson Hunter was the physician and early developer whose name the springs carried. Cyrus B. Mendenhall acquired and expanded the property in the mid-1880s. Franklin W. Rich operated the Rich Hotel at Hunters Hot Springs in 1886. P. J. Nolan was associated with a Livingston hardware business. Zadock H. Daniels served in Park County government, and Charles A. Burg was a Livingston-area resident who later held county office.

This does not mean every face has been established beyond dispute. Five remain unidentified, and the surviving evidence does not turn the photograph into a perfect record. But this local grouping explains why the men were together, why they posed at the resort, and why several can be matched with other photographs and records from the area. It requires no undocumented summit of famous lawmen and outlaws.

The Date Written on the Copy

The handwritten caption gives the year as 1883, but that date is also questionable. Architectural details and the histories of the men and businesses represented in the scene have led researchers to suggest a later window, approximately 1886 to 1888. Franklin Rich’s hotel operation and Mendenhall’s ownership belong to that period.

That range is not conclusive. Buildings were altered, individuals remained in the region after property changed hands, and the exact occasion has not been established. The responsible conclusion is therefore narrower: the photograph was taken at Hunters Hot Springs, but the familiar 1883 date has not been demonstrated and may be several years too early.

How One Real Photograph Became a False Story

The photograph did not need to be altered. Someone merely numbered the faces and wrote famous names below them. Once that caption was attached, every later copy appeared to carry its own proof. The older and blurrier the reproduction became, the easier it was to see whichever face the label promised.

One name may have helped the fiction seem legitimate. Number 12 is identified in both lists as Harry Britton. A single correct or locally remembered name placed among invented celebrity identifications can give the entire caption an appearance of authority. The other men then become whoever the seller or storyteller says they are.

The image also benefits from a familiar Old West assumption: notable people must have crossed paths simply because they lived during the same broad era. But the West was enormous, travel required time, and these men had separate lives scattered from Arizona and Texas to Colorado, Montana, and the Dakotas. A claim that so many celebrated figures met at one Montana resort demands documentation. No contemporary guest register, newspaper notice, diary entry, letter, or original caption has been produced to support it.

What the Photograph Really Shows

Stripped of the false names, the photograph is not worthless. It becomes useful again.

It shows a group of men at a developing Montana hot-springs resort during the territorial or early statehood era. Among them appear to be the resort’s founder, a later proprietor, hotel and business operators, and men active in the surrounding community. Their clothing, posture, and arrangement offer an authentic view of local life. They do not need to be Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, or Butch Cassidy to matter.

The real lesson of “The Gathering” is not that an impossible collection of Western legends once shared a porch. It is that a handwritten caption can overpower the evidence in the photograph itself. Repetition then does the rest.

The photograph is genuine. The gathering of celebrities is not.

Research Notes and Documentation

Hunters Hot Springs Photograph research site: Detailed face comparisons, local identifications, business histories, and the tentative 1886-1888 dating argument. https://huntershotsprings.net/

Hunters Hot Springs Photograph – dating discussion: Explains why the building and ownership evidence suggest a date later than the handwritten 1883 caption while acknowledging that the range is not conclusive. https://huntershotsprings.net/page-4.html

Montana History Portal: Springdale: Community history identifying Cyrus B. Mendenhall and the development of Springdale near the springs. https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/128287

Montana History Portal: Hunter Hot Springs Resort: Catalog record and historic image of the resort near Livingston, Montana. https://www.mtmemory.org/

Treasure State Lifestyles: Montana’s Early Hot Springs: Secondary overview of Dr. Hunter, Mendenhall’s purchase and expansion of the resort, and later ownership. https://treasurestatelifestyles.com/montanas-early-hot-springs/

Flickr circulation example: An example of the celebrity caption circulating online with the claimed 1883 date and famous names. https://www.flickr.com/photos/23691447@N04/2430723361

Chronology checks: Morgan Earp was killed in Tombstone on March 18, 1882. Robert LeRoy Parker was born in 1866, and Harry Alonzo Longabaugh was born in 1867. These dates independently rule out key portions of the 1883 celebrity caption.