Medora mayor will have to wait to hang

• Mayor Meeting

Kinley Slauter, a member of the Medora Planning and Zoning Commission, speaks to Mayor Doug Ellison, right, during a meeting at the Medora Community Center Tuesday evening.

Talk about it

MEDORA — The jury is out on whether Mayor Doug Ellison will be hanged.

The Medora Planning and Zoning Commission tabled Ellison’s proposal to erect a gallows to stage hangings during a Tuesday evening meeting at the Medora Community Center until concerns are addressed.

Ellison has volunteered to be the first “victim” of the demonstrations, which would take place on his property in the city.

“This will be entirely safe and professional,” he said. “I’m not going to hang random people.”

Planning and Zoning Commissioner Mary Griffin-Abrahamson wants a fence in Ellison’s application so the display is under lock and key, especially since it will not be a permanent fixture.

“I know that if it’s not securely fenced that it will be used or abused,” she said. “I have a clubhouse on my property and I’ve had 11- and 12-year-old kids rocking that thing across the yard.”

Ellison said her concern is legitimate and he would include a fence.

“We want to do this right and not have any misgivings at all,” he said.

The project is in “the spirit of the old west,” Ellison said, adding it will allow for demonstrations of frontier justice.

“My thought is that although nobody was ever hanged in Medora, I think this would be a great tool for exploring that,” he said. “Medora obviously has a rich, colorful history of violence, among other things.”

A safety harness would be used during the hangings, he added.

“The rope around your neck is a prop,” Ellison said. “If anything happens, the rope separates and you just hit the ground, you don’t break your neck.”

Kinley Slauter, Planning and Zoning Commission president, said he is excited about the proposal.

Ellison said he has heard quite a bit of interest in the subject.

“To me, it’s kind of surprising how often people ask about, you know, the early days and whether there were any shootings or hangings in Medora and so on,” he said.

Tags: mayor doug ellison, planning and zoning, medora community center, badlands, news, medora, hanging