Financial History Issue 133 (Spring 2020) | Page 10

EDUCATORS’ PERSPECTIVE Montana artist Charlie Russell’s painting, “Waiting for a Chinook,” depicts the disastrous winter of 1886–87. they often stayed nearby their owner’s homestead, and good homesteaders kept a close eye on their unbranded property. Nevertheless, these open range assets were routinely rounded up, branded and sold at the WSGA auction. Tensions began to mount as small ranchers chafed at the brazen actions of the WSGA. The WSGA, on the other hand, failed to distinguish between rus- tlers and honest homesteaders. In the WSGA’s eyes, a homesteader was a rustler. The large cattle ranchers in Johnson County had yet to experience a drought. That changed in the summer of 1886 when the spring rains failed to material- ize. To make matters worse, overgrazing was becoming an issue. The once seem- ingly inexhaustible grasslands began to show strain as more and more cattle were released on the open range. Ranch managers and the cowboys who worked for them hoped the summer drought would be relieved by a mild winter, but it was not to be. Those who experienced it remembered that winter as “The Great Die- up.” Heavy snows began in November with a slight lull in early December. The snows returned with a vengeance in late December and did not abate until March. Cattle losses were horrendous. According to historian John Davis, “probably 50% of the range cattle in Wyoming and 75% in Montana” were lost. Large outfits with absentee owners were hit hardest. 3 Clay wrote, “The cowmen of the West and Northwest were flat broke. Many of them never recovered. They had not the heart to face another debacle… Most of the eastern men and the Britishers said ‘enough’ and went away.” Moreton Frewen never returned to Wyoming after 1886. Plummeting cattle prices and the con- tinuing drought after a catastrophic winter spelled disaster for the cattle industry. Wages had already been cut by $5 a month in the spring of 1886. 4 Most cowboys work- ing for the large outfits were seasonal employees who were laid off during the winter. Traditionally, an unemployed cow- boy could “ride the grub line,” which meant free room and board at the various ranches that would likely hire them back in the spring. This practice ended when the wage cuts went into effect, forcing many out-of-work ranch hands to resort to rus- tling to make it through the winter. Since few ranch jobs were available in the spring of 1887, many former ranch employees turned to the Homestead Act of 1862 for relief. Under the Act, any male citizen over the age of 21 could, for a small processing fee, claim 160 acres of feder- ally owned land. If the claimant improved the land and lived on it for five years, he 8    FINANCIAL HISTORY  |  Spring 2020  | www.MoAF.org received title to the property. 5 Of course, these cowboys knew the country well, and they tended to home- stead in areas on the open range that were key to the success of their former employ- ers. Large cattle ranchers, who depended on access to free federally owned lands and often acted as if they owned the open range, were incensed at the audacity of Johnson County homesteaders. They retaliated by refusing to hire any cowboy who owned his own cattle. The WSGA aggressively pursued per- ceived rustlers, but they were unable to get convictions in local courts because the local jury pools were usually sympathetic to the rustlers. Frustrations mounted on both sides, and it was only a matter of time before blood was spilled. The first deaths occurred in the summer of 1889 in central Wyoming when WSGA members wrongly hanged homesteaders Ella Watson and Jim Averell for cattle rus- tling. Adding insult to injury, the WSGA, through the Cheyenne media, mounted a national slander campaign against the two unfortunate victims. The violence would move to Johnson County in 1891 when two honest men were dry gulched.  Brian Grinder is a professor at Eastern Washington University and a member of Financial History’s editorial board. Dr. Dan Cooper is the president of Active Learning Technologies. Notes 1. According to Knowlton, “Over the next four months Macdonald would talk to anyone who knew anything about the emerging American cattle trade—ranch- ers, farmers, beef packers, and regulators. He traveled 11,420 miles by train—averag- ing 22 miles per hour, at a cost of 3½ cents a mile, visiting most of the states in the West and the Midwest.” 2. John Clay wrote of Edinburgh: The financial officers of that conserva- tive old city had found a new mine to exploit. The drawing rooms buzzed with the stories of this last of bonanzas; staid old gentlemen who scarcely knew the difference betwixt a steer and a heifer discussed it over their port and nuts. Mr.