‘Rivertown Rebels’ come to life in Ghosts of McGregor’s Past Guided Historical Walking Tour
By Audrey Posten, Times-Register
Meet some notorious “Rivertown Rebels” during the fourth installment of the Ghosts of McGregor’s Past Guided Historical Walking Tour.
Tours will depart from Triangle Park from 5 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 31, and again from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 1. Attendees can arrive any time during those slots, and guides will lead them to five locations in downtown McGregor, where community members portraying colorful historical figures will act out short skits.
Characters featured this year include Mississippi River pirate Doc Bell, nine-times-married Emma “Virgin Em” Eastman, farm wife Mary Moody who hosted Jesse James and his gang, bank robber Charles Greathouse and western author Dorothy Johnson. Doc Bell, Virgin Em and Mary Moody and Jesse James are reprising roles from the inaugural event in 2019, but the latter two are new stories.
McGregor Public Library Director Michelle Pettit, an event organizer and writer of most of the scripts, said the focus on notorious figures came from audience demand.
“When you ask actors, they can really relish that role, and audiences like colorful stories. It adds an element of excitement,” she said.
While no one wants to condone bad behavior, Pettit acknowledged it can be fun to look at these figures from a historical angle. Even see they are not all bad.
“You can get some distance and really imagine what happened,” she shared. “Charles Greathouse, for example, and even Jesse James and Doc Bell, there are glimmers in their stories that they’re not all bad. It’s an element I find interesting.”
Even more interesting: “These are real stories about actual people,” Pettit said.
Ghosts of McGregor’s Past is a collaborative effort between the McGregor Historic Preservation Commission, McGregor Historical Museum and McGregor Public Library. Free will donations at the event will support the organizations.
Pettit is not only library director, but a member of both HPC and the museum board, and has long relished researching McGregor’s history. She was especially captivated by the river pirate Doc Bell, who she began investigating in 2009.
“There were some articles before I started digging, in scrapbooks from the 1940s onward,” she recalled, “but not primary source stuff.”
Pettit went back to primary sources and original articles from the time Bell was arrested in 1858, after fleeing to Michigan.
“Now, we have a pretty full story, but I still don’t know what happened to him after he was released from jail,” she said. “It’s difficult because he used aliases—he didn’t want to be found.”
This year, Pettit enjoyed digging into the new characters, Charles Greathouse and Dorothy Johnson. Greathouse robbed a trio of banks in 1957—the first of which was the First State Savings Bank in McGregor. His exploits are more recent. The man, after being paroled, passed away only in 2015, and some McGregor residents still remember when the robbery happened.
Dorothy Johnson was born in 1905 in McGregor and then moved to Montana with her family. She later authored many westerns, one of the most notable being “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” Two characters from the book, outlaw Liberty Valance and idealistic lawyer Ransom Stoddard, are featured in her skit.
“Both sides of her family came from rural McGregor,” said Pettit. “She was award winning and considered one of the best western authors. Her stories were made into several movies.”
Johnson was not only a trailblazer for other women writers in the genre, but approached westerns in a new way, according to Pettit.
“She broke through and became very respected,” Pettit said. “They were not just generic westerns, but there was contrast, and she added drama to the story.”
Ghosts of McGregor’s Past helps resurrect some of these forgotten—or lesser known—stories and people for current audiences.
“It’s very intriguing. Like being a history detective,” Pettit quipped.
