Ed Brannin – A Mild

Mannered But Canny

Peace Officer

    Thursday marks the 50^th anniversary of the discovery of Henry Hughson’s body near the old Independence mining camp. The man who discovered the body was Sweet Grass County Sheriff Ed Brannin.

Originally from Silver City, N. M., Brannin moved to a ranch near Empire with his family when he was 21 years old. The journey was rough.

    The family encountered freezing snows in Utah, where about half of their original 900 Angora goats died. They suffered from lack of water and lost all but 100 head of their 360 horses. They were stricken with typhoid in Flagstaff, Arizona.

    After a few years on the family’s Empire ranch, Brannin moved to the Sweet Grass area and built a cabin. Three years later his father and three younger brothers, Dick, Gus and Joe followed. They built a house and blacksmith shop on unsurveyed land. Mrs. Brannin and five other children arrived three years after that.

    BROTHER JOE eventually was appointed deputy sheriff by Oscar Fallang. He was murdered when he went to Melville to arrest two horse theives. He was shot in the chest. He was 28 years old.

    BRANNIN joined the search and tracked his brother’s murderers for 21 days before leaving the posse. The men were apprehended near Phoenix, Arizona six months later.

    During his 77 years, Brannin owned and operated a ranch and a saw mill. The saw mill, which he operated for 14 years, was moved from Sweet Grass Creek to Otter Creek to Basin Creek and back to Sweet Grass Creek, where it was sold. He also was a miner in Lewistown’s Spotted Horse Mine, a blacksmith, a stock inspector and Sweet Grass County Sheriff.

    During his 14-year tenure as sheriff, Brannin was involved in some interesting and, sometimes, baffling cases. His uncanny ability to track suspects and piece together seemingly unrelated clues earned him respect as one of the finest lawmen in Montana, according to his son, Jim.

    In addition to the Hughson case, Brannin investigated the death of a man who went to get a Christmas tree one day and never returned.

    The man’s pickup truck was found parked a few feet away from a blazing cabin near where he disappeared. When the rubble cooled, his watch and pocketknife and some charred bones were found in the ashes.

    The sheriff’s investigation revealed that the man had been covered by a life insurance policy. He noted that the murdered man’s wife had remained dry eyes and calm during the funeral.

    A short time later, Salt Lake City authorities took the man into custody when he said he had been kidnapped, blindfolded and driven to the city before he managed to escape. The story was a lie.

    Brannin discovered that a grave in Bozeman had been robbed prior to the Sweet Grass County fire. The bones he discovered in the ashes had been those taken from the cemetery.

    It was revealed that the man and his wife had intended to defraud the insurance company that carried his policy, but the scheme failed.

    ALTHOUGH he had many brushes with death, Brannin was wounded critically only once during his years as sheriff. The incident occurred in 1934.

    Bozeman resident Sam Ruggle had been visiting a friend on Blind Bridger. He disappeared after leaving a note indicating that he intended to commit suicide. Brannin and his under sheriff began tracking the man.

Ruggle waited behind a rock and ambushed the pair as they approached. A bullet entered the under sheriff’s chest, killing him instantly. Brannin was critically wounded when a bullet entered through his back, passed through his lung and exited through a place slightly below his ribs.

    The bullet’s impact sent Brannin rolling down the hill. He did not have the car keys and as he began walking to town, the blood flowed from his wounds. He walked nearly a mile down Bridger Creek before Harry Flemming found him and called a doctor.

    After a relatively short (12 days) stay in the hospital, Brannin was released. He returned to his job almost immediately and served the rest of his term.

    Ruggles was found the morning after the shooting with a bullet in his head. Investigators agreed that he had planned suicide.

    Jim Brannin was a member of the posse that tracked the murderer. He thought there were indications that Ruggles might have been murdered, but could not prove it.

    THE FATHER of three suffered a stroke during the fall of 1943. He died eight months later, the victim of a second stroke.

    Jim Brannin remembers his father as a short, stocky, jolly man who never smoked or drank, but enjoyed a square dance.

    "He wasn’t much for visiting with strangers, but with old friends he would talk himself to death."

    He was a man who taught his children to understand and respect nature and to pay attention to its warning signals. He taught them to respect guns, even toy guns.

    "Never point a gun at anything unless you intend to kill it," he instructed them.

    He was a man who commanded the respect and obedience of his children.

    "When I was 40 years old he was still the boss," his son admits.

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