Caught - Tracy Allen Province

Dateline:  Terry, Montana

Maybe you had not heard about Meeteetse, which is the Indian word for “meeting place”, before but you will now be hearing and seeing more about that small town in Wyoming.  The authorities just captured Tracy Allen Province, who was one of the Arizona prison escapees, in Meeteetse.  He was caught right in the middle of town sitting on a curb with a sign asking to hitch a ride to Casper.  

The town was used as a model for a small town in the recent movie “Did you hear about the Morgans” starring Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant.  The name was changed to Ray to protect the innocent citizens of Meeteetse from being identified with the clichéd Western characters featured prominently in the movie, which is about a New York couple entering the Federal Witness Protection Program.  

Tracy Allen Province must have watched that movie on cable before his escape and thought that it might a good place for an escaped convict to hide as well.  The sparse population in Park County, busy making a living with ranching to pay much attention to the outside world, must have been very inviting to him.  He even went to a Sunday church service at the Meeteetse Community Church and was paid by the Pastor to mow the church lawn.  

 But Meeteetse does have cable and satellite TV and one of the church goers recognized him from being featured on recent news and “America’s Most Wanted” TV programs.  She now stands to collect part of the $40,000 reward offered for the capture of the escapees.  

 Anyone seeing the other escapee John Charles McCluskey and his accomplice Casslyn Welch is asked to contact their local police.   They have been reported on their way to Glacier National Park in Montana.

 Review of the movie originally was posted on www.montanawithkids.com  earlier this year.

Shirley Adams is the wife of Ron Adams, the mayor of Hardin, Montana, and answered questions for this article about the privatizing of the Hardin police. Shirley said that no such thing had occurred and that the Big Horn County Sheriff Lawrence “Pete” Big Hair and his deputies are still patrolling their city of about 3,500 residents, a town about 45 miles southeast of Billings. Continue Reading

Any traveler of the Interstate-90 corridor through Montana will surely see signs for the Deer Lodge Prison Museum Complex, assuming they have eyes in their heads and some amount of brain connected to it. Personally I can’t read, but I have people who do that for me so I was keenly aware these billboards existed from the time I hit the state line, and so I count myself in the know. The complex is much more than that, but the Prison Museum is the heart, and if you miss it, you’re really missing it.
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