Cattlemen Vs Sheepherders: Five Decades of Violence in the West

From the 1870s until the 1920s cattlemen and sheepmen clashed bitterly for rangeland in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. During five decades of irregular but vicious warfare, scores of attacks were launched by cattlemen, at least twenty-eight sheepmen and sixteen cowboys were killed, and more than 53,000 sheep were shot, clubbed, knifed, poisoned, dynamited and rimrocked. There were 120 raids and skirmishes across the west, including famous events such as the Pleasant Valley War, the murder of Willie Nickell, the Diamondfield Jack trial and the brutal Ten Sleep tragedy, and involving gunfighters Tom Horn and Commodore Perry Owens, cattle baron Charles Goodnight, and other frontier notables. Bill O'Neal is one of the country's top Western historians.