In the late 1960s, Livingston, Montana–a railroad town on the Yellowstone River–became an unlikely outpost, attracting writers and artists in search of space and freedom. At the center stood the Murray Hotel and the surrounding Murray Block. Some of the bars that once fueled long nights of inspiration and ambition have long-since disappeared, others have changed, but the bones of the block and their stories remain.

By the time he was a teenager, Thomas McGuane knew he wanted to write and live in Montana. He successfully made the journey in 1968, at the age of twenty-nine, and subsequently published his first novel, “The Sporting Club” while living in Livingston. Friends and former classmates including Jim Harrison, Richard Brautigan, Russell Chatham, Bill Hjortsberg, and others joined Tom in Montana in the 60s and 70s, resulting in an informal collective of writers, artists, musicians, and outdoorsmen that became known as the “Montana Gang”. Together, they fueled each other’s creative work and vivid social lives, all rooted in the unique energy of Livingston and the Murray Block.

I’ve loved rivers since I was a boy. When I moved to Montana in 1968, I had a fishing rod and enough money to make it three or four months before I needed a real job. But then my first book got picked up and I had the freedom to keep fishing and writing.

I found a job caretaking a ranch in Pray, Montana, where I was joined by my friend Jim Harrison, who I met in college. Jim and I had long bonded over our love of literature and life outdoors; we had each wanted to become writers since we were children. By the time Jim was 17 or 18 years old, he had already read the great American and European writers. It was clear to me that he was destined for greatness.

His tastes were more evolved than mine then–if we divided over anything, it was that he loved Dostoyevsky while I loved Tolstoy. At the same time, he was more interested in poetry, while I had a passion for comic literature that I could never quite shake off. My efforts to write seriously are always underpinned with comedy. I can find humor in a hanging.

After Jim, more friends began trickling into the area: Russ Chatham, a painter from California; Bill Hjortsberg, a classmate of mine from Yale; Richard Brautigan, the famous author of “Trout Fishing in America”. We talked about books non-stop…when we weren’t hunting, fishing, or hiking in the nearby wilderness. In some literary circles, we were the Montana Gang.

Our love of writing, our love of literature was a fire we fueled for each other: new books or new projects. To quote Henry James, “We work in the dark. We do what we can. We give what we have.” We lived like that.

The vast surrounding land was a place of escape, a place of quiet–but writing is solitary, and you need to get out and see other people, hear other voices, other concerns. Inevitably, we found ourselves at bars. The Wrangler had a band. The Owl persisted as a writers’ hangout. And the Murray was the spot to find renowned filmmaker Sam Peckinpah. Going to bars was really a condition of our existence, the source of many of our stories, published and otherwise.

For years, we were hungry for recognition. We published books and screenplays and wrote to each other in those days before the internet. We weren’t exactly a breaking wave. We were just blackening pages and hoping something got accepted and mostly living like dogs, our favorite animal. Our early successes produced occasional disruptions, but we survived them and came out the other side.

We lived hard in those years, and some of us changed our ways, and the ones who didn’t are dead, but it was an extraordinarily rich, intellectual, and artistic atmosphere for a cow and railroad town in the middle of nowhere. It was a very fulfilling world to be a part of, one I miss every day.

Montana was the core. It’s an inexhaustibly beautiful place. What was it that called to me? It’s not all that profound: the land, the rivers, a society that prized freedom and new beginnings. These draws endure for adventurous souls of all stripes, even artists and writers.

The spirit that attracted the Montana Gang hasn’t vanished. It lingers in Livingston and throughout the Paradise Valley, in the fly shops and bookstores, in galleries and cafes, along the Yellowstone River and inside the weathered walls of the Murray Hotel. Their work can be found across the region, on bookstore shelves, in gallery spaces, and in the quiet corners of local gathering places. Come visit the Murray Block and imagine the haze of smoke, the bursts of laughter, and the long nights of ambition that once filled its rooms–the sound of a group of friends chasing words, art, and freedom in the West, and let it be a reminder to find your own inspiration wherever your horizon leads.