Customer Reviews

The Last Eleven Days Of Earl Durand

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This historical account of the hunt for Earl Durand that captured the hearts and the minds of Americans when it happened is "told by" people involved in the posse, as well as the young poacher who took part in the crime that started Earl Durand's fall from grace. The writer's literary mastery is obvious from the first paragraph of the first chapter. Then the work takes on a reporting tone: simple, honest, and factual, "spoken" in the language of the era and the region, with controversial views on Earl Durand by his contemporaries. It's rather obvious that the writer went thought great pains to research the era, the participants, and the event. The book contains photographs of the posse members; it contains a map of the area, as well as pictures of Earl Durand. Was Earl Durand a clod-blooded killer? Did he go insane? Or, was he a misunderstood free spirit living in a wrong century? Was he only to blame for his demise? Or did his environment have something to do with it? The book, simple on the surface in its reporting style, raises many questions regarding human condition and morality in the industrial/post-industrial society of a "remote" location in Wyoming during the Great Depression. If you were a capable hunter living near the bountiful government-protected land, and your neighbors were starving for the lack of work in a miserable economy, would you go poaching to feed your neighbors? I rate the book at 4 only because there is some painful (for my personal taste), yet hardly avoidable repetition as the storytellers take turns re-telling their versions of the same event.

A great factual read about some of the history of Northwest Wyoming and the struggle in the transition from the old west to the modern USA.

A superbly written history of a little-known, bloody story about Earl Durand, who basically terrorized northwestern Wyoming early in the 20th century.
A "must" for aficionados of Western history.

In 1939 my grandfather ran the grocery store only a few doors down from the bank where the final shootout occurred(see photo). I'm sure he was in the store when bullets started whizzing up and down the street outside. But, amazingly, although I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, I don't remember ever hearing even one word about the Earl Durand calamity as I grew up. It wasn't until 3 years ago when it came up in a discussion between my mother & her twin sister that I learned that such a Bonnie and Clyde type escapade had taken place in their tiny home town. My mother had been at the University of Wyoming at the time but her sister was in Powell. Now, 64 years later, they were 85 years old and not very clear on the details. I read all the old newspaper accounts I could find to try and flesh out the story but still didn't feel I had any clear understanding of the events. This summer on a visit to Powell I opened the Powell Tribune and read about this new book on Earl Durand. I immediately bought it and found it spellbinding. Its style of using eyewitness accounts makes you feel like you were actually there. I didn't mind the repetition at all. On the contrary I found that hearing about the same events from different perspectives was very illuminating. Jerred Metz is to be congratulated for doing it this way. This was a story that needed to be told to fill out the history of the Bighorn basin. Anyone interested in the west of pre-WWII days should read it.

As a resident of the town of Powell, Earl Durand has always been talked about here, more as a legend than fact, and this book continues that theme. While an extremely engaging read, it sometimes made me wonder how factual each account was. I would recommend reading it, but I would not take it all as fact, I would double check what happened before I took this as 100% solid fact.