Shang Stanton

Charles "Shang" Stanton (died 1889) was a gambler of the American frontier, whose killing of Slim Jim Shumway on April 25, 1872 provided the impetus for establishing Clay County, Minnesota government in Moorhead, Minnesota. Stanton's real name was Edward Stanton Curran, and after his death he was remembered as a gambler, statuesque, "a rounder," and infinitely devoted to his wife and young children.

Character Stanton was only a youth when he first went to work in railroad construction. He initially became known as a pugilist; "experience which made him stand high in the respect of everybody in those then un-terrified regions."

Setting In the spring of 1872, Stanton was a gambler and gunfighter who had gravitated, with many others, to the unfinished western end of the under-construction Northern Pacific Railway. According to pioneer and attorney Solomon Comstock, the terminus of the railroad attracted many unsavory and violent characters. "In the bad old days when Moorhead was a small tent town at track end and when most of the buildings were dance halls, saloons, or gambling houses, the gunman was here too. He followed the track. He boasted that he would die with his boots on and he usually did. The talk of his six shooters was often heard." looked for Stanton, and put word out that he intended to demand satisfaction. This word was passed to Stanton, who waited in a saloon. The confrontation between the two men was not a duel. Shumway entered the saloon, approached Stanton from behind, and shoved him. Stanton whirled around, stuck his revolver into Shumway's belly, and fired. Stanton fled, and the mortally wounded Shumway tried to follow, running into the street and firing wildly in all directions. One of Shumway's bullets struck and killed the owner of a neighboring saloon, JP Thompson of the Orleans Club.

Disposition of the Case Following his killing of Shumway, Stanton was arrested by a posse and held for trial. Establishment of a county government had to precede any trial, so on the day of the shooting, Peter Wilson and Andrew Holes were sworn in as County Commissioners, and they in turn appointed Jim Blanchard as county sheriff, Solomon Comstock as county attorney, and David Grant as Justice of the Peace. Stanton later relocated to Bismarck, North Dakota, Deadwood, South Dakota, and then Spokane, Washington, where he died in the spring of 1889.

Legacy Following the announcement of Stanton's death, The Morning Review newspaper of Spokane called him, "a character so well known in the Northwest as to entitle him to more extended mention." The accompanying article went on to explain that Stanton was well known in Minneapolis, Bismarck, and Spokane Falls, it stated that he, "towered above the coterie of lesser lights of the green cloth fraternity," and it mourned the loss of the "noted gambler and adventurer."