The Johnson County War is one of the most brutal, vicious and pivotal chapters in Wyoming's history, when the state’s powerful cattle barons and their hired gunmen used terror and murder to drive off homesteaders.
While the legacy of the Johnson County War is everywhere around the Cowboy State, its history has slowly disappeared from the landscape.
A yearslong conflict between setters and the cattle barons came to a head in April 1892, when dozens of armed men hired by the cattlemen — who became known as “invaders” — converged on homesteaders around Johnson County, Wyoming. Their goal was to shoot, hang or otherwise murder a list of 70 troublemaking settlers
-Edward
Kenny, that is a really good article. Thank you for posting it.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks to Edward for sending it in.
DeleteNate Champion was my cowboy hero when I was a youngster.
There is a really great statue of "Nate Champion's Last Run" outside the museum in Buffalo, WY. Wheelgun in one hand, lever rifle in the other. I've stayed at the TA Ranch, where the siege took place. You can still see the loopholes they cut in the barn.
DeleteAnd that's what I get for a knee-jerk post without reading the article first. So eager to prove I know something, then looking like an idiot.
DeleteIt happens to the best of us.
DeleteI want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the West. Take this down. I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists!
ReplyDeleteYou got a pencil?
DeleteCould you repeat that, Sir.
DeleteOne of my favorite lines from a very funny movie.
DeleteGreat read. Thank you
ReplyDeleteExcellent article, I read that site a couple times a week.
ReplyDeleteAs to the point of the article
Never underestimate someone with nothing left to lose
JD
Very good read. I was riveted the whole time.
ReplyDeleteA good book about the Johnson County war is "The Banditti of the Plains: Or The Cattlemen's Invasion of Wyoming in 1892".
ReplyDeleteUncle Dave
That's also the Powder River country, the area the Sioux fought for for two generations. There's something about that sea of grass that is very compelling. You don't get an appreciation for it from the interstate. We drove through there a couple of times this summer, once when the grass was still green and later when grass fires closed I-90. Drive from Kaycee to Newcastle and you get an idea what all the fuss was about for both the Sioux and the cattlemen.
ReplyDeleteGood find Ken.
ReplyDelete