On this day in 1901, Old West historian, ground-breaking screen writer and Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist, Alfred Bertram Guthrie, was born in 
Bedford, Indiana.
Known best as “A. B.,” (left) his birthplace belies his deep roots in the American frontier. His family moved to Choteau, Montana, when Guthrie was six months old, where his father was a high school principal. On the cusp of the modern age, Montana had been a state less than a dozen years at the turn of the century. Promoters and railroad men were still trying to entice settlers to its remote places.
Guthrie attended the University of Montana, where he majored in journalism. His father believed “it was the way to become a writer,” a concept the author disputed, although it led to a 22-year career at Kentucky’s Lexington Leader newspaper.
He was awarded a prestigious Nieman Fellowship from Harvard University while serving as the paper’s executive editor. It was there he was mentored by English professor, poet and novelist Theodore Morrison.
Until his time at Harvard fiction had eluded Guthrie. In 1943 he wrote what he considered a “trashy thriller” entitled “Murders at Moon Dance.” As early as 1944, he attempted to write a serious story of the mountain men. But by 1947, he had published his book, “The Big Sky,” and left the newspaper business behind.
His second novel, “The Way West,” won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1950. The Oregon Trail saga was made into a major motion picture in 1967 starring Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum, and Richard Widmark. Academy Award winning actress Sally Field (right) also had a feature role as the wayward Maggie McBee, her first on the big screen.
Considered a “break through” for Western fiction, his work was devoid of the pulpy mythology of most frontier novels of the period, a result, the author said, of having “a sense of morality.”
Guthrie also authored the Academy-Award-nominated movie script for the Western classic, “Shane,” starring Alan Ladd (left) in 1953 and “The Kentuckian” in 1955. He published four more novels set in the West. “Fair Land, Fair Land,” published in 1982, completed the Big Sky trilogy on Western expansion. In addition, he authored five Western mysteries featuring small town Montana sheriff Chick Charleston and his teenage “Watsonesque” assistant, Jason Beard.
Guthrie continued to write throughout his life. His last book, “A Field Guide to Writing Fiction” was published just two weeks before his death, on April 26, 1991. He died at the age of 90 at his ranch in his hometown of Choteau, Montana.
Mormon Row Historic District and the “Shane Cabins,” provided the locations for A.B. Gutherie’s Oscar nominated film “Shane.” North of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the area is part of Grand Teton National Park. Mormon Row was settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1890s. Called 
Grovont by the U.S. Postal Service, the 27 homesteads were named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
What has become known as the Shane Cabin, historically the Luther Taylor Cabin, is a few miles from buildings of Mormon Row. Located approximately one mile north and a mile east of Kelly, Wyoming, along Gros Ventre Road, there are no historic markers. For more information go to nps.gov/Mormon Row – Grand Teton National Park, call (307) 739-3300 or write P.O. Drawer 170, Moose, WY 83012.
© Text Only – 2017 – Headin’ West LLC – All photos – public domain or fair use.