Historical Note - Week of March 22nd

Daily Yellowstone Journal, March 27, 1887

Advices from Cooke City report ten feet of snow on the level, if there is any level. We are informed that some dishonest citizens have taken advantage of the deep snow to perpetrate a disgraceful swindle on arriving speculators. The swindler gets a length of stovepipe, and sticks it up in the snow over the nearest vacant ground to the business center. He informs the speculator that he has a house under the stovepipe, and sells the house and lot for what appears to be very reasonable figures. He makes several such sales in the shortest possible time, and then skips out to enjoy his ill-gotten gains where the law cannot reach him.—Billings Gazette