Children pose with George F. "Skyline Bill" Willman in front of the Rio Theater, 335 North Main (Last Chance Gulch), May 17, 1941. The photo is by Les Jorud.

A Rio newspaper ad has Skyline Bill scheduled to appear only on the previous day, May 16, with his trained dog. It's unclear if he appeared both days, or if this photo was simply staged with the May 17 matinee crowd.

A professionally retouched version of this photo exists, with the marquee altered to read "Skyline Bill with Dog". The retouching is well done, and may have been by Jorud himself.

Indiana native Willman (1870-1956) was a man of several occupations. He was a Northern Pacific Railway telegraph operator, rancher, alleged stagecoach driver, alleged deputy sheriff, animal trainer, self-styled old west character and self-promoter in the style of William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill. He traded on that romantic frontier image for years, enhancing it with a variety of tall tales.

Willman told various versions of where he got his moniker, but it most likely came from Skyline, a former Northern Pacific station just east of the Mullan Tunnel, atop the Continental Divide west of Helena. He was a long-time railroad telegrapher at nearby Austin.

George was married to Ida Boortz of Wisconsin from 1907 until her death in 1930.

The first mention found of George appearing as his Skyline Bill character was a 1940 Missoula newspaper item about that city's Diamond Jubilee parade, in which he rode. He told interviewers that he had engagements for years prior to that, but no evidence was found.

Newspaper mentions indicate that his most active period as Skyline Bill was between 1940 and 1948, the year he sold his property in Montana and moved back to his home town of Vernon, Indiana. There, he opened a "museum" of his collection of old west relics in his home, which he dubbed Wigwam Hollow.

Willman was diligent at keeping Skyline Bill in the newspapers. He would often simply walk into newspaper offices while sporting his Buffalo Bill-style whiskers, dressed in his ten-gallon hat and elaborately decorated buckskin coat. He would ask if they wanted to write a feature about "Skyline Bill", which they often did. A small payment to him was sometimes involved.

This approach seems to have worked particularly well in 1947, when Willman went on a western states tour to drum up publicity and cash prior to retiring in Indiana. There are a number of newspaper features about him from that trip, one more fanciful and contradictory than the next about his personal history.

When retired in Vernon, Willman placed small weekly "Skyline Bill Says" classified ads in the local newspaper. Each would offer an observation about current local happenings, or life in general. Some would directly promote his small museum of curios, which was located in his home, about one mile south of Vernon, Indiana on Highway 7. It has been demolished.

Willman passed away in 1956 at the Northern Pacific Railway Hospital in St. Paul. MN