Memories of Old Montana by Con Price

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Memories of Old Montana by Con Price

(4 User reviews) 1012

By Christopher Ilic Posted on Mar 30, 2026

In Category - Family Life

Authors: Price, Con, 1869-1958 Published By : Price, Con, 1869-1958

Book Language: English

Hey, I just finished this incredible book that feels like sitting on a porch swing with your grandpa—if your grandpa was a real-life cowboy who helped build the American West. 'Memories of Old Montana' isn't a novel; it's Con Price's actual life story, told in his own plain-spoken words. He arrived in Montana as a kid in 1876, just as the era of open range and buffalo herds was ending and the era of fences and railroads was beginning. The whole book is about that massive, messy change. It's not a dry history lesson—it's about the smell of cattle on the trail, the sound of a cowboy's song around a campfire, and the quiet heartbreak of watching a world you love vanish forever. Price doesn't romanticize it; he just tells you what he saw and did, from hunting with Native Americans to driving the last great cattle herds. The conflict isn't a shoot-out (though there are some of those), it's time itself. How do you hold onto a way of life that's disappearing right before your eyes? Reading this feels like preserving a piece of history that was almost lost.

File: Memories of Old Montana by Con Price

If you ever wished you could step into a time machine and see the Old West with your own eyes, this book is the next best thing. Con Price doesn't just write about history; he lived it from the ground up, starting as a wide-eyed boy arriving in a raw, new territory.

The Story

Price takes us from his childhood in the 1870s, when Montana was still a territory teeming with buffalo and governed by unwritten codes, through his years as a young cowboy on the great cattle drives. He worked on some of the biggest ranches, knew famous figures like Teddy Roosevelt and Charles M. Russell not as legends, but as people, and witnessed the closing of the frontier firsthand. The story follows his life as the open range was carved up by homesteaders, towns sprang up where camps once were, and the free-roaming life of the cowboy was fenced in. It's a firsthand account of the end of one America and the birth of another.

Why You Should Read It

What makes this book special is its voice. Price isn't a fancy writer; he's a storyteller. You can almost hear him talking. His memories are sharp and vivid—the bone-deep cold of a winter storm on the plains, the chaos of a stampede, the simple satisfaction of a meal after a long day's ride. He doesn't judge the past through a modern lens. He shows you the beauty, the hardship, and the complexity of that life without sugarcoating the violence or the loss. It feels honest. You're not getting a historian's analysis; you're getting a man's life, with all its pride, humor, and nostalgia.

Final Verdict

This is a must-read for anyone who loves true stories of the American West, history fans who want a primary source that reads like an adventure, and anyone who appreciates a good, straightforward life story. If you enjoyed books like Lonesome Dove for its atmosphere, you'll love this for its authenticity. It's a quiet, powerful, and deeply personal goodbye to a vanished world, written by one of the last men who could remember it all.