How Sandbar Got His Name: Frank D. Brown

 

                                                             Frank D. "Sandbar" Brown

An exaggerated account of this tale was published in the May 4, 1923 Mail that was taken from the Great Falls Leader. Because the story is a good yarn I will quote the entire excerpt: “[this story]…brings us to the name “Sandbar” as attached to Mr. Frank D. Brown. Not vouching for the story, but telling it as it was told to me in the days when every man had something tacked onto the name his folks gave him, it relates to Mr. Brown and the red brothers of the days when scalp locks were more fashionable in the Indian village than short skirts to the rail bird brigade of today. Mr. Brown was rather sudden with a gun in the early time, and also a chief clerk of a large institution, between prospecting and hunting trips. The Henry rifle, predecessor of the present Winchester had just come into use and Mr. Brown grabbed the first one off the boat. The Henry was brass bound, held 16 cartridges of .44 caliber, with one in the barrel, and rim-fire---the cartridges, not the barrel. Mr. Brown was traveling along innocent like near the Missouri River one gladsome summer day and was jumped by about 20 red brothers, all howling for ruddy gore and riding hell bent for a taste of it. Mr. Brown rode his horse across the river at a convenient ford, leading his pack horse. On the side where he came out was a long spit of sandbar reaching into the river and Mr. Brown rode up the sandbar to the bank, tied his horses and walked back to the open. 

Lo! The poor Indian had a cheerful habit of drawing the fire from the white man’s smoke stick and then charging in before he could reload; a very disconcerting habit and predicated upon the proposition that the white man had a single shot rifle and all necessary to success was to dodge the first bullet and then wade in. With 20 Indians coming across the river whooping, Mr. Brown was to be made an example of the habit, the repeating gun not figured in the performance, as the first let a whoop and headed for the white man. But Mr. Brown was a different kind of medicine than the red brother had ever met in his scalping entertainments as he kept right on firing while Indians kept tumbling to the sandbar in a most disconcerting fashion---the charge broke up and the Indians headed for the other shore, with seven down and Mr. Brown still shooting for good measure. 

Then he untied his horses filled the magazine of the little Henry and went on his blithesome way. “Hell”, said Mr. Brown some time after in discussion of the incident when friends commented upon the inequality of 20 Indians to one white man “I could a kivered the whole damn sandbar if they’d just kept comin’!” And thereafter he was known as “Sandbar” Brown---and that is the kind of hairpin “Sandbar” Brown was in the days of real sport!” 

The above article was written at the time Sandbar was elected to be the secretary of the Society of Montana Pioneers. He was the Historian for the Society for many years and was “…pioneer extraordinary as well as plenipotentiary to every ghost city of the west” according to the May 4, 1923 Mail. 

The year of 1875 found Sandbar as a government scout on the ill-fated Baker Expedition down the Yellowstone, Sun River, Prickly Pear, Last Chance, Bear Gulch, Cedar Creek and then one season of “fruitless” prospecting in Utah. In 1878 Sandbar and his wife moved to Philipsburg where he accepted the position of superintendent of the Northwest Company at Tower. He had married Anna E. (unknown maiden name) in Helena, Montana in December 1873. 

Born in Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany she immigrated to America as a child. Anna died at the age of fifty-nine on October 6, 1914 at her daughter’s home in Missoula. Frank D. “Sandbar” Brown died January 16, 1931 “of sheer old age” at 2:30 in the morning at the home of his daughter Mrs. Rutledge Parker in the Rattlesnake Valley near Missoula. He was eighty-five years old “and never were years more crowded with action, with adventure, with achievement.” 

According to his wishes “Sandbar” was buried next to his wife in the Philipsburg cemetery.