Red Lodge in Carbon County, Montana — The American West (Mountains)
Liver-Eating Johnston's Cabin
Photographed by Barry Swackhamer, July 21, 2021
1. Liver-Eating Johnston's Cabin Marker
Inscription.
Liver-Eating Johnston's Cabin. . This log cabin was the home of one of Montana's most notorious citizens - John "Liver-Eating" Johnston, a sobriquet he earned in 1869 while cutting wood for the Missouri River steamboats in north central Montana. After a battle with the Lakota, he pretended to eat the liver of a recently killed warrior. Johnston's misguided reputation as a cannibal served him well for the rest of his life in Montana. He came to the Red Lodge area in the 1880s and filed on a homestead about three miles south of town, building this classic American log cabin of Douglas fir that had recently been killed in a forest fire. For several years, he served as Red Lodge's first constable. Liver-Eating Johnston's reputation was his greatest asset when enforcing the law in the mining community - that and his large fists. Local children loved him, though, and he exchanged the fearsome, liver-eating nickname for "Dad" by the late 1890s. In 1899, failing health forced him to retire to an old soldier's home in Sawtelle, California, where he died in 1900.
This log cabin was the home of one of Montana's most notorious citizens - John "Liver-Eating" Johnston, a sobriquet he earned in 1869 while cutting wood for the Missouri River steamboats in north central Montana. After a battle with the Lakota, he pretended to eat the liver of a recently killed warrior. Johnston's misguided reputation as a cannibal served him well for the rest of his life in Montana. He came to the Red Lodge area in the 1880s and filed on a homestead about three miles south of town, building this classic American log cabin of Douglas fir that had recently been killed in a forest fire. For several years, he served as Red Lodge's first constable. Liver-Eating Johnston's reputation was his greatest asset when enforcing the law in the mining community - that and his large fists. Local children loved him, though, and he exchanged the fearsome, liver-eating nickname for "Dad" by the late 1890s. In 1899, failing health forced him to retire to an old soldier's home in Sawtelle, California, where he died in 1900.
109° 14.809′ W. Marker is in Red Lodge, Montana, in Carbon County. It is on Broadway Avenue North near 3rd Street East, on the left when traveling north. The cabin is next to the Red Lodge Chamber of Commerce. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 701 Broadway Avenue North, Red Lodge MT 59068, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Yellowstone Country and in Greater Billings. It is also in the American Mountain West and in the Lewis & Clark Corridor. Globally, it is in North America, the Rocky Mountains, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once Ruperts Land and also the Louisiana Purchase.
Credits. This page was last revised on June 23, 2026. It was originally submitted on January 11, 2022, by Barry Swackhamer of Brentwood, California. This page has been viewed 2,786 times since then and 164 times this year. Photos:1, 2, 3, 4. submitted on January 11, 2022, by Barry Swackhamer of Brentwood, California.
