Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 23, 2025
This week’s episode of Taylor Sheridan’s 1923 took viewers far beyond Montana, weaving in surprising real-world elements like the infamous Winchester House in California and the wealthy suburb of Winnetka, Illinois. It also introduced a new character played by Janet Montgomery. With so much grounded in fact, let’s break down what’s real and what’s fictional in this episode of 1923 (spoilers).
The Teonna Rainwater storyline is getting increasingly tense as Father Renaud and Marshal Kent draw closer. Unfortunately, Anders — the C. Thomas Howell character — gave Teonna up and sent Renaud and Kent in the right direction after the priest told him that Teonna had killed two nuns in their sleep (nevermind that she had very good reasons for doing so). By the end of the episode, Renaud and Kent had tracked down Pete, and a shootout commenced, the outcome of which is left as a cliffhanger.
It’s worth taking a moment here to discuss the history of Native American assimilation in the 1920s. We touched upon the Catholic boarding schools responsible for forced assimilation in the 1920s, but we should emphasize that America was brutally hostile toward Natives in the ’20s. U.S. government policy was aggressively assimilationist, seeking to erase Native culture while denying Native Americans even their basic rights.
The Dawes Act of 1887 divided tribal lands into individual allotments designed to encourage farming and “civilize” Native Americans. Children were stripped from their parents and forced into assimilation schools; Native languages were suppressed; tribal ceremonies were banned; and Native religions were outlawed.
The American government was wielded against Native Americans but offered them no protections or even fundamental legal rights. That often meant that, yes, white men could murder Native Americans and face little or no consequence. The fact that Marshal Kent and Father Renaud have murdered Natives at their whim may seem like television fiction, but it’s accurate to the times. Even when Natives were made U.S. citizens in 1924, they had no real rights, and the brutal treatment of Native Americans went unchecked.
At least U.S. Marshal Mamie Fossett (Jennifer Carpenter) — who, again, is based on a female marshal of the day — seems to dislike Renaud and Kent and have some sympathy for Native Americans, though it’s unclear if she’ll be put in a position to do anything. In this episode, Fossett apprehends Spencer, brings him in, and calls Sheriff McDowell (Robert Patrick) in Montana to vouch for him.
Amusingly, when talking to the Texas sheriff about the ever-expanding jailhouse, Fossett references the Winchester House in California. That’s real and very amusing. In the early 1900s, the Winchester Mansion was owned by Sarah Winchester, the widow of William Wirt Winchester, heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company fortune. After her husband and infant died, she inherited a large portion of the fortune.
However, Sarah Winchester believed that she was haunted by the spirits of people killed by Winchester rifles. The only way to appease them, she believed, was to build a house that never stopped being built. And so, in 1886, she bought an eight-room farmhouse in San Jose, and construction didn’t stop until her death in 1922. By the early 1900s, the house had become such a monstrosity that there were staircases that led to ceilings, doors that opened into walls, windows built into the floor, and hallways that turned back on themselves. There was even a séance room.
After Sarah Winchester’s death, the house was bought and turned into a tourist attraction that still exists today. Interestingly, in 2018, there was a (bad) horror movie inspired by Sarah Winchester called Winchester. Ironically, Sarah was played by … Helen Mirren, who plays Cara Dutton in 1923.
Anyway, Spencer got a train ticket out of the deal, which may lead him away from Teonna in Texas and put him on a collision course with Elizabeth, perhaps even in Chicago. Speaking of which, Elizabeth’s train ride from Boston to Chicago was not without event. She took a waitstaff job on the train in order to earn a meal at the end of the day. However, while waiting on a revolting gentleman, he sexually assaulted her, and Elizabeth beat the sh** out of him with a coffee pot. She would’ve been jailed but for two witnesses — a married couple played by Janet Montgomery and Augustus Prew — who apprised police of what really happened. Montgomery may look familiar to many of you, but it may be hard to place her out of context: She played Dr. Bloom in New Amsterdam and may also be familiar to many from her run on the WGN series Salem.
In either respect, after Elizabeth’s train to Fargo was delayed indefinitely due to snow, the married couple, Hillary and Paul, agreed to take her back to their home in Winnetka. For the unfamiliar, Winnetka was — and still is — a very posh area outside of Chicago. It was wealthy, progressive, and civic-minded, the kind of place with lots of social clubs. It was, indeed, more like what Elizabeth was used to in England than what most of the American West was like at the time.
It’s also worth noting that the Home Alone house is in Winnetka.
Finally, there was a brief moment in Montana where Banner Creighton dumped the body of a sex worker on behalf of his boss, Donald Whitfield. I should note here that sex workers at the time had about as many rights as Native Americans. Brothels were allowed, but if white men assaulted — or even murdered — sex workers, they were rarely arrested. Investigations into the murder of sex workers were rarely prioritized, and deaths were typically blamed either on the dangerousness of the work or on the moral failings of the women.
The 1920s were horrific and beyond messed up.
