Presentation and book-signing by author Bill Farley. Jim Murray’s rise to great wealth began high in the Rocky Mountains in the small town of Pioneer, Montana. There he hit his first big strike, hired others to work his claims, and earned a reputation as someone who “couldn’t be bluffed, wouldn’t be cheated, and didn’t scare at anything.” He parlayed his mining wealth into banks, theatres, resorts, waterworks and commercial properties from Seattle to San Diego. In western business circles, it was believed his ready cash was second only to W.A. Clark. Where Murray shared no peers, however, was in his decidedly radical politics. From the Irish Land League protests of the 1880s through the Easter Rising of 1916, he supported the violent overthrow of Britain’s rule in his homeland. Hoping for the Crown’s defeat in World War I, Murray’s extremism reached its peak when future World War II General Omar Bradley was dispatched to Butte, Montana to stop Murray’s network of “Sinn Féiners” from impeding the supply of copper to Britain’s war machine.

Told for the first time, this is the unvarnished story of Murray’s rise to great wealth and power, and the flamboyant cast of friends and family that endured his violent mood swings and his eccentric generosities. Farley relates the entirety of Murray’s audacious life: ruling over mining camps in Montana, dining with Diamond Jim Brady and Lillian Russell in New York, showering the Monterey art colony with patronage, and propelling a loyal nephew to the top of a radical Irish-American organization with 600,000 members. His story concludes with the bitter fight over his massive estate, involving 38 relatives, nine years of court battles, and headline coverage by newspapers throughout the west. This is the tale of a western iconoclast, a pioneering and dominating spirit, more comfortable in saloons than board rooms, who fought for wealth and mother country to his last breath.