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It’s not a clear 1-1 comparison, but there is a substantial history of armed conflict between groups of individuals associated with different ranches/grazing operations.
In 1934, the Department of the Interior was given jurisdiction to regulate grazing on public lands. The primary purpose of this law (the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934) was to address over-grazing, which was a primary contributor to the duct bowl. But there was a secondary purpose. While things had calmed down by 1934, there had been a long history in the western US of “range wars,” protracted violent conflicts over the right to graze certain lands, access water sources, build fences, etc.
To focus on a specific example, let’s talk about the Sheep Wars. In the late 19th century, cattle ranching was pretty well established in the western US. But by 1870, shepherding was starting to take root as well. This lead to conflict between the established cattle ranchers and the incoming sheepherders. There were conflicts across the west, but it got particularly severe at the Colorado / Wyoming border. In the 1890s, Wyoming sheepherders attempted to bring large flocks into northwest Colorado, threatening the ranges which had been used for cattle grazing for 20 or so years. By the early 1900s, the cattlemen started forming “cattlemen associations,” which allowed the ranchers to band together to fight of both the sheepherders and rustlers.
One of the more impactful associations was the Yampa Valley Cattle Growers Association, which became notorious for hiring former cavalry scout and Pinkerton agent Tom Horn. Horn’s official title was “range detective,” with the pretext that he would investigate rustling. In reality, be was basically a hit man sent out to kill people accused of cattle rustling.
By 1901, Horn was in Wyoming, working with a family of cattle ranchers in what is now Farthing. The family had an ongoing violent conflict with the neighboring sheepherders, The teen-aged son of the sheep ranching family was murdered that July, and the next month another son was shot and wounded while nearly 100 of their sheep were killed. Horn was charged, convicted and executed for the murder.
The conflict continued for years, with cattlemen leading raids into Wyoming to attack sheepherders, killing both the ranchers and their flocks. The last murders occurred in 1909, with raids attacking livestock persisting until at least 1920.
Elsewhere, the conflict was between cattle ranchers themselves, generally where someone had established a large ranch and controlled a lot of grazing land (a cattle baron) and newcomers to the area who wanted graze their cattle on the same land. These conflicts did bear a resemblance to modern “gang wars,” with tit-for-tat killings and occasional larger scale shootouts.
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It’s not a clear 1-1 comparison, but there is a substantial history of armed conflict between groups of individuals associated with different ranches/grazing operations.
In 1934, the Department of the Interior was given jurisdiction to regulate grazing on public lands. The primary purpose of this law (the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934) was to address over-grazing, which was a primary contributor to the duct bowl. But there was a secondary purpose. While things had calmed down by 1934, there had been a long history in the western US of “range wars,” protracted violent conflicts over the right to graze certain lands, access water sources, build fences, etc.
To focus on a specific example, let’s talk about the Sheep Wars. In the late 19th century, cattle ranching was pretty well established in the western US. But by 1870, shepherding was starting to take root as well. This lead to conflict between the established cattle ranchers and the incoming sheepherders. There were conflicts across the west, but it got particularly severe at the Colorado / Wyoming border. In the 1890s, Wyoming sheepherders attempted to bring large flocks into northwest Colorado, threatening the ranges which had been used for cattle grazing for 20 or so years. By the early 1900s, the cattlemen started forming “cattlemen associations,” which allowed the ranchers to band together to fight of both the sheepherders and rustlers.
One of the more impactful associations was the Yampa Valley Cattle Growers Association, which became notorious for hiring former cavalry scout and Pinkerton agent Tom Horn. Horn’s official title was “range detective,” with the pretext that he would investigate rustling. In reality, be was basically a hit man sent out to kill people accused of cattle rustling.
By 1901, Horn was in Wyoming, working with a family of cattle ranchers in what is now Farthing. The family had an ongoing violent conflict with the neighboring sheepherders, The teen-aged son of the sheep ranching family was murdered that July, and the next month another son was shot and wounded while nearly 100 of their sheep were killed. Horn was charged, convicted and executed for the murder.
The conflict continued for years, with cattlemen leading raids into Wyoming to attack sheepherders, killing both the ranchers and their flocks. The last murders occurred in 1909, with raids attacking livestock persisting until at least 1920.
Elsewhere, the conflict was between cattle ranchers themselves, generally where someone had established a large ranch and controlled a lot of grazing land (a cattle baron) and newcomers to the area who wanted graze their cattle on the same land. These conflicts did bear a resemblance to modern “gang wars,” with tit-for-tat killings and occasional larger scale shootouts.