Outside Invaders and the Johnson County Cattle War
With violence and vigilantism on the rise in the late 1800s cattle industry, Wyoming had been booming with the success of both large thousand-head outfits and smaller family or individual-owned outfits. Within years the competition for both grazing land and the heads of cattle sparked cattle rustling and vigilante violence from both kinds of operators. To end this, the wealthy Stockgrowers made a hit list of rustlers and associates in Johnson County and hired over twenty Texas gunmen to kill or coerce the people of Johnson County.
In 1892, after years of economic and political competition between smaller ranches and the larger mostly foreign-owned cattle companies, a series of vigilante lynchings took place across Wyoming, particularly in the Northeastern portion of the state where Johnson County is located. The Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA), representing the large cattle companies, accused many smaller cattle operations of stock theft, but local juries refused to convict because of lack of evidence or sympathy for the smaller operators. With seemingly no quick legal action able to stop any alleged rustlers, the WSGA devised a plan for an expedition to northeastern Wyoming to capture, coerce, or kill the rustlers and their associates.
The network of stock growers and their associates was deeply entrenched in both state politics and economics. Judges, politicians, and bankers worked with ranchers to plan this expedition into rustler territory to root out the suspected rustlers. The scale of the operation was astonishing with the amount of sourcing of supplies, transportation, weapons & ammunition, and number of men involved. The crew of the expedition to Johnson County included multiple WSGA members, stock inspectors, and around twenty gunslingers brought by train from Texas. Using Cheyenne as their base of operations and calling themselves the Invaders, this 50-man group confidently had their photograph taken before at Fort D.A. Russell in Cheyenne before they left for Johnson County.
Meanwhile in Cheyenne, the inner circles of the stock growers worked to establish their legal justifications for their violent actions against the suspected rustlers and their associates. Dozens of the expedition members, including the Texas gunmen, partied throughout both the day and night at many of the wealthier association members’ estates. When the Invaders regrouped in the morning, they boarded a privately booked train to Casper further north. While riding the train, some stops included a photo shoot of the train passing through Platte Canyon on its way to Casper. The expedition rode onward to the K.C. Ranch where they planned to kill one of their primary rustler targets, Nate Champion. Once again taking the opportunity to document their actions, the Invaders had the mounted expedition photographed before leaving to kill Nate Champion and move on to the town of Buffalo.
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