The late 1880s in Wyoming saw an increase in tensions between small ranchers and the large cattle corporations, like the ones Joe Elliott worked for as a cowpuncher and cattle drive foreman in the 1880s. There were nearly a million head of cattle on the Wyoming rangelands in the mid-1880s. A successful homesteader might have had a couple thousand cattle on his land (usually much less), but a single cattle corporation might have owned anywhere from a few tens of thousands to 200,000 head of cattle. The large 101 ranch in northeastern Wyoming, owned by Joe Elliott’s friend Elias Whitcomb, “branded 20,000 calves a year for several years” (Hope).
The harsh winter of 1886-1887 had a couple of important consequences. For one, it killed off large numbers of cattle, precipitating the consolidation of some of the large outfits. For another, it was devastating to most small ranchers. Prior to that winter, Joe Elliott was a foreman in charge of large roundups, having as many as 300 hired cowboys under his supervision at one time. When his outfit, the Six Half Circle, merged with another company in ‘87, he found himself unemployed. This led him, within a year or so, to take a job as a stock detective for the Wyoming Stock Grower’s Association. Here’s what he said of that time:
After the hard winter of ‘86-’87, when so many cattle died, the PLR and Six Half Circle were turned over to Billy Ricketts to run with the Half Circle L outfit, and I was out of a job.
I’m not clear on my moves for the next year or so. I jumped around so much at that time that I’m not sure of dates.
I drove one or two herds for the 101. They were driving up onto Beaver Creek in Montana. One, I think, I drove part way and turned over to Doc Long, who was driving a herd ahead of me, and I went back after another bunch.
I took a crew and went over and rounded up Uncle Whit’s (E. W. Whitcomb’s) horses. He wanted me to stay with him, on the expectation that he and his foreman would part company, and that I would take over. But I wouldn’t do it. I told him, “If you’re going to fire George now, I’ll go to work.” But I didn’t want the job otherwise.
Jack Rogers was sheriff of Crook county. He told me that if I wanted to, to come in and work for him as deputy sheriff. I didn’t. I think I went up and got one man, and brought him back to Sundance.
It was about this time that I went to work for the Association as a stock detective. They put me at Merino (now Upton) [in Weston county]. That was my headquarters as long as I worked for the Wyoming Association.
As another consequence of the harsh winter, many of the cowpunchers who had worked for the large ranches also lost their jobs. Many of these cowboys, knowing the land and the cattle business, took advantage of the Homesteader Act and staked out their own claims on the range. These new ranchers were a threat to the big companies, who were now under great pressure from their financial backers in the East to restock their herds, and most of these cow hands-turned-homesteaders were blackballed from further work with the large ranches.
Tensions erupted on all sides. It is undoubtedly true that many new homesteaders grew their herds by stealing cattle, especially by cutting out unbranded calves (mavericks) from the company herds that covered the range. Yet many honest homesteaders would find their own stock missing after a company drive crossed their land and subsumed their stock. This happened when company drovers moved their cattle onto homesteaders’ land in search of better grass on an already over-grazed range. Fences were still a rare thing on the Wyoming range.
What made things even worse was resentment over the “Maverick Bill,” which the WSGA had pushed through the territorial legislature in 1884. The bill fanned the flames of a steadily building class war between the WSGA member ranches and the homesteaders. The bill gave the association “sole authority to conduct roundups in the territory and claim mavericks. This bill… was bitterly resented, flagrantly violated, and practically unenforceable…. The detectives continued to identify stock thieves, develop evidence of their guilt, and arrest them, but it became increasingly difficult to obtain indictments and convictions because of a rising tide of resentment against the Maverick Bill, the big cattlemen, and especially the detectives themselves” (Alias Frank Canton, DeArment, pp. 80-81). This state of affairs led the residents of Johnson county to organized their own stock association, and to schedule their spring roundup of 1892 a month ahead of the regular WSGA roundup. This infuriated WSGA member ranches, who saw it as a ploy to rustle every maverick on the range. By most accounts, the the WSGA’s ill-fated “invasion” of Johnson county in April of 1892 had already been planned, but the announcement of an earlier roundup in Johnson county made the WSGA’s action more urgent and hasty. Joe Elliott, who participated in the invasion, said this:
Something had to be done, yes, but not what we did nor in the way we did it. Our affair was badly planned and badly managed all the way through. What we should have done, when we heard that the rustlers were planning this shot-gun roundup, was to have gone into Buffalo with a few good men, say 20 well armed men, and told the people there that we didn’t want any trouble, but that we were going to see to it that the roundup was held according to custom and law. We’d have had Angus [Johnson county's sheriff] on our side, I’m sure of it. I believe that suggestion was made, and rejected. I didn’t make it; I was just a hired man.
