One of Dayton's Many Claims to Fame

DAYTON–There's an interesting video available online that includes numerous mentions of Our Fair City in connection with one of its most famous inhabitants, Frank Finkel.

Finkel, as has been described in past editions of the Dayton Chronicle, in 1923 and 2020 and inbetween, was said to be the only survivor of Custer's Last Stand. Frank Smith Finkel died August 28, 1930, at the age of 76 and is buried in the Dayton City Cemetery.

The documentary was made in 2011 and is made for the type of television channel now characterized by catching the channel surfer's attention. There are plenty of commercial breaks after which the story rewinds a few paragraphs and re-re-recounts what has already been disclosed. It is tedious to watch.

It poses the question of how Finkel may have managed to survive Custer and his 200-man cavalry unit who were killed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in southeastern Montana, on June 25, 1876.

Finkel lived out his latter years in Dayton as a gentleman farmer. Disclosure of his connections to Little Big Horn were revealed to the world when Finkel, in exchange for the newly formed Dayton Kiwanis Club membership assisting with carpentry work on his Dayton residence, told his story to one of the club's meetings in its first year of existence in 1923.

The story was published in the Chronicle and the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin.

Over the decades, many have questioned the veracity of Finkel's assertions.

From the program and according to a presentation given by local historian Gary Lentz to the Blue Mountain Heritage Society in 2020, Finkel claimed that while horseback, a round hit the stock of his rifle, sending shards of wood into his face and blood from the wound into his eyes. Hit by a couple more rounds, at that moment, his horse bolted and galloped through the middle of the skirmish with the temporarily blinded Finkel hanging on for dear life. That a cavalryman on horseback blew through was verified by Indian scout Curley in later years.

Soon a considerable distance from the fray, long story short, Finkel eventually located a cabin in the wilderness. Inside was a man, lying and dying of tuberculosis, and another frontiersman. As Finkel recovered, the ill man succumbed and the two buried him. Although he feared being labeled a deserter, Finkel later attempted to rejoin the army but they had no record of him under the belief that all in Custer's command had been killed. No one would listen so he walked away.

Lentz's presentation and that of the documentary producers both explore who Finkel was prior to enlistment and they both state that, while one may play fast and loose with one's name, it's impossible to fake physical attributes such as eye color and height. Both point back to army records that follow a person with Finkel's physical characteristics enlisting and their subsequent posts. Finkel was between six one and six four, and had steel grey eyes.

Of the numerous consistencies in Finkel's story, two stand out, according to Lentz-and these points are not in the video documentary.

Finkel described a company riding to the bottom of one of the arroyos and firing two volleys. After a fire in 1949, archeologists discovered 100 shell casings at the bottom of the canyon where Finkel said his company of 50 had been ordered to fire two volleys.

The other interesting point is Company C's members are found scattered about the battlefield, according to Lentz. What happened to Company E? After that 1949 fire, archeologists found, in a deep ravine, an arm sticking out of the hillside. There they found the remains of 28 troopers, exactly where Finkel said they'd be.

Over the years, scores of imposters have purported to have survived Little Big Horn. Most went into details of dubious veracity. In the recorded accounts of Frank Finkel, most of the time he was asserting that the popular mythology was incorrect rather than agreeing and fawning for public adoration. He never sought the limelight, and when he was heard commenting on Custer's Last Stand, his perspectives opposed the accepted story.

Only Finkel's versions, first brought to light 47 years after the deadly skirmish, have proven true through archaeological evidence found at the Custer Battlefield.