4/9/1892 - In Wyoming, what historians will one day call the Johnson County War (it is also referred to as War on the Powder River and the Wyoming Range War), a conflict between large cattle companies and homesteaders and alleged rustlers over land, water rights, and livestock, violently explodes at the small "KC" Ranch of cowboy Nathan David "Nate" Champion.
Champion
Nate is born into the large and respected family of John and Naomi Champion on September 29, 1857 near the town of Leander, Texas, in the state's Williamson County, about 22 miles miles northwest of the city of Austin. His father the sheriff of the county, his Aunt Hattie a hard woman capable of driving her cattle to market in Abilene, Kansas in 1871, Nate grows up among seventeen brothers and sisters near the Wild West town of Round Rock, a locale known for Comanche raids, the nearby Chisholm Trail, and the 1878 gun battle between Texas Rangers and the outlaw band of Sam Bass in which Deputy Sheriff A. W. Grimes, bandit Seaborne Barnes, and gang leader Bass are all killed. Learning the outdoor skills required to survive the region, by 1881, 24-year-old Nate is a top cowboy, and as such, accompanied by his twin brother, Dudley, he takes a herd of Longhorn cattle north along the Goodnight-Loving Trail to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Enchanted by the area, the brothers decide to stay and soon become top hands on several Wyoming ranches, and begin dreaming of one day having a small ranch of their own.
L-R ... Martin Tisdale, Dudley Champion,
And Nate Champion
But Wyoming of the 1880s and 1890s can be just as easily a nightmare for it's inhabitants as the territory undergoes the growing pains of transforming from a region of public domain open to both ranchers and homesteaders, into a place of boundaries and settlements, where water rights are paramount and the once common practice of branding orphan or stray cattle as one's own morphs into an act of criminal rustling. Increasingly, as the Champion brothers put down roots in the Powder River Country of northern Wyoming, they find themselves siding with the homesteaders and "rustlers" against the big ranches of wealthy owners that organize themselves into the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA) which meets at the Cheyenne Club in the bustling town of Cheyenne and organizes the cattle industry into scheduled roundups, cattle shipments, decides who can participate, has the power to push through the legislature the Maverick Act in which unbranded cattle on the open range automatically belong to the association, and employees a private army of "range detectives" to police their holdings against rustling. When the winter of 1886-1897, known as the the "Big Die-Up" hits the region and horribly mauls the cattle business (the region will be hit by a series of blizzards that drop temperatures to -50 degrees and pile snow into drifts in places above ten feet in height) the gloves come off for both sides in a series of incidents that escalate into murders and retaliation killings.
The Cheyenne Club
The Big Die-Up
Typical of the greed and murderous nature of the Johnson County War are two of it's first deaths. On July 20, 1889, range detective George Henderson, local rancher, Albert John Bothwell, and a handful of their cohorts take captive at gunpoint, 29-year-old Ellen "Ella" Liddy Watson and her husband, 38-year-old local businessman Jim Averell, accuse the pair of rustling (she has a bill of sales for the cattle in question and it is no coincidence that Bothwell wants the water rights to the 320 acre property the pair is occupying, has been turned down numerous times in his attempts to buy the land, and is incensed at the temerity of being bested by a woman), and without any kind of a trial, set the couple air dancing from a nearby tree along a canyon of the Sweetwater River (where they are left dangling for two days, the only hanging of a female in Wyoming history). Then, as if that isn't bad enough, Ellen, a cook, housekeeper, waitress, seamstress, and shrewd business woman, is transformed into an outlaw prostitute known as Cattle Kate by the Cheyenne Daily Sun and other newspapers controlled by the WSGA, while Averell, a widower, general store and saloon owner, postmaster (appointed by President Grover Cleveland), notary public (appointed by Wyoming governor Thomas Moonlight) and Justice of the Peace (at the behest of the Carbon County Board of Commissioners), becomes an avaricious pimp for his paramour. Not surprisingly, when the men responsible for the lynching are rounded up by Sheriff Frank Hadsell and Deputy Sheriff Phil Watson (no relation to Ellen), arrested, and put before a grand jury (half of which are cattlemen belonging to the WSGA), witnesses start vanishing or turning up dead, none of the participants are found guilty of any crime, and as expected, Bothwell acquires the land of the couple he helped hang.
Watson
Averell
Hanging Tree
Bothwell
Unhappy at what happened to Watson and Averell, the enemies of the Cheyenne Club strike back, killing range detective Henderson near Sweetwater Creek in October of 1890. That killing in turn causes the WSGA to lynch even more "rustlers" ... a horse trader named Tom Waggoner is hung, a friend of Waggoner called Jimmy the Butcher is murdered, and range detective Tom Smith kills a suspected rustler and is indicted for murder, but then freed by the political power of the Association Those acts in turn cause the small ranchers and homesteaders to form their own "protective," creating the Northern Wyoming Farmers and Stock Growers' Association (NWFSGA). Seeking a leader worthy of the new association, the group elects a man who isn't even yet a member and that refuses the post when he hears about his office, Nathan Champion. Not caring, when the WSGA hears of Champion's election, he becomes the number one name on a list of "rustlers" (also on the list of 70 names is the Johnson County Sheriff, all his deputies, three county commissioners, a newspaper editor, a prominent Buffalo, Wyoming merchant, and an assortment of local cowboys, small ranchers, and homesteaders) they have marked for assassination (he will be christened the "King of Rustlers"), and the first target of their head gunman, a former Texas outlaw and cattle rustler named Joe Horner, who as a "lawman," becomes Sheriff of Johnson County, Wyoming, Frank Canton.
Horner/Canton
The first assassination attempt on Champion's life takes place on November 1, 1891. Cowboying for W. H. Hall, Champion and Ross Gilbertson are sleeping peacefully in a line shack on Middle Fork of the Powder River, when they are visited by four gunmen of the WSGA ... Frank Canton, Joe Elliot, Tom Smith, and Fred Coates. Creeping up the small log structure containing a single bunk adjacent to the cabin's only door, the assassins, attempting to take captive the two men for a later "message" lynching, burst inside just before dawn with their guns drawn as one calls out, "Give up. We have got you this time!" Awake immediately, Champion calmly asks the intruders, "What's the matter, boys?" as he grabs his revolver from beneath a pillow and opens fire simultaneously with being fired upon. In the exchange of lead, Champion receives a powder burn to the face by a near miss and another slug plows into the bedding between the cowboy and Gilbertson while mortally wounding one man in the side, nicking another gunman in the arm, and sending the would-be killers fleeing into the darkness where in their haste to find safety from Champion's gunfire, they leave behind four overcoats, their horses, a Winchester rifle, and a trail of blood. Chasing after the men, Champion will be driven back into the cabin by Joe Elliot fired bullets (later, Elliot will be arrested and charged with attempted murder but will have the charges dropped when the only witness to the affair, Gilbertson, will decide to cowboy under more peaceful circumstances and disappears).
Nate On Horse Nearest Chuckwagon And Dudley
Farthest Away
Champion wanted dead, and many others in the county too, in the spring of 1892, the Cheyenne Club comes up with a plan to invade Johnson County with a gang of hired gunmen and remove all their "people" problems in one fell swoop, funded by 100 members contributing $1,000 each to a solution. Recruiting 23 gunmen from Paris, Texas for pay of $5 a day, a $3,000 "accident" insurance policy, and a bonus of $50 for every "rustler" killed, a small force is soon put together under the command of former Civil War major, Frank Wolcott, and gunman Frank Canton, that includes the Texas "regulators," a group of WSGA range detectives, State Senator Bob Tisdale, State Water Commissioner W. J. Clarke, Wyoming statehood organizers, William C. Irvine and Hubert Teshemacher, surgeon Charles Bingham Penrose, and a newspaper reporter from the Cheyenne Daily Leader, and another from the prestigious Chicago Herald, over fifty men in all. In Denver, Colorado the Texas contingent of killers are gifted with new Colt revolvers and high caliber .45-90 and .38-55 Winchester rifles and board a special train bound for Casper, Wyoming. Arriving in Casper in the 4:00 in the morning darkness, and during a snow storm, the Texans and Wyoming men mount up on horses and in three freight wagons, and ride off north towards Johnson County, cutting telegraph lines as they go so their invasion will remain a secret until it is too late for anyone to deal with. The killer's first destination is 150 miles away, the small "KC" Ranch of some two hundred head of cattle belonging to their #1 enemy, Nate Champion.
Wolcott
Most Of The Invaders
KC Ranch Headquarters
Ambush to siege, moving about the cabin, which is struck by hundreds of Regulator bullets, firing from the doorway and windows, Champion keeps the killers outside at bay for hours, killing four men and wounding several others (accounts of his shooting vary), while also amazingly keeping a pencil written, first-hand account of his fight in a small red tally book that will find its way into the hands of Chicago Herald reporter Sam T. Clover after the battle. Among the words Champion leaves behind are: Me and Nick Ray was getting breakfast when the attack took place ... They are still shooting and are all around the house ... Boys, there are bullets coming in like hail ... It is now about two hours since the first shot ... Nick is shot but not dead yet. I must go and wait on him ... Nick is dead. He died about 9 o'clock ... I don't think they intend to let me get away this time ... Boys, I feel pretty lonesome just now. I wish there was someone with me so we could watch all sides at once ... I hear them splitting wood. I guess they are going to fire the house tonight. I think I will make a break when night comes, if alive ... There was a man in a buckboard and one on horseback that just passed. They fired on them as they went by. I don't know if they killed them or not ... They are shooting at the house now. If I had a pair of glasses, I believe I would know some of those men ... Shooting again. I think they will fire the house this time ... The house is all fired. Goodbye, boys, if I never see you again ... Nathan D. Champion
Cowboying - Champion Standing At Left, Jack
Flagg Is Seated At Right
The beginning of the end of the battle takes place when, headed north, for the homesteader friendly town of Buffalo (sixty miles and several hours away), Champion neighbor O. H. "Jack" Flagg (another name on the Regulators death list) and his 17-year-old stepson, Alonzo Taylor, stumble onto the scene in mid-afternoon. Not immediately fired on because the Texas gunman nearby don't recognize Flagg, the two men are shot at when they refuse to stop and unsuccessfully pursued by seven gunmen, but escape when they abandon the wagon they are driving to town at a nearby bridge and use one of the draft horses (the other is wounded) to ride off to town. Wagon grabbed by the gunmen, it is filled with alternating layers of hay and pitch pine posts, then set aflame, becoming a huge rolling torch that five men killers push across 75 yards of open ground while other gunmen keep Champion under cover shooting into the windows and front door of the cabin. Wagon torch placed against the cabin, the structure is soon ablaze, with thick smoke pouring out of every opening. Signing his name to his tally book and slipping the account of his battle into his vest pocket, Champion crawls to the only part of the building not yet on fire, a storage dugout off the kitchen, and readies himself for a last attempt at escaping ... a dash through smoke and snow blowing south towards a ravine 100 yards away. Revolver fully loaded and a round waiting for firing in his rifle (actually the rifle of Frank Canton, confiscated when the man fled his attempt at assassinating Champion back in November), as the cabin collapses, to shouts of "There he goes," the 35-year-old cowboy and rancher bursts out of the back door of burning structure. Running on stocking feet, with bullets striking all around him, he miraculously makes it to the ravine untouched, but it is as far as he will go. Waiting in the land cut for just such an occurrence are six of the Texas gunmen
Enemies at close range, Champion gets off one rifle shot before being hit by a round that shatters his left elbow and knocks his rifle out of his hand, then by another bullet, this time to the chest that puts him on his back as a helpless target ... a helpless target that the WSGA killers turn into a holed hunk of human Swiss cheese. Down and finally out, Champion will be found to have been hit by 28 bullets. Stepping forward, Canton recovers his rifle will stating, "He came out fighting and died game." Game but not above insulting a final time, a lettered placard is placed on his chest that reads, "CATTLE THIEVES, BEWARE!" (while Clover takes the tally book, blood soaked and holed by a rifle round, out of Champion's pocket). Eyes open to the sky he will never see again, left where he has fallen, Champion's corpse is fed on by wild animals for two days, but his last stand and death will not have been in vain (his remains will be buried in the town that springs up nearby and honors the name of his ranch, Kaycee, Wyoming ... in the Willow Grove Cemetery).
Drawing Of Where Champion Fell
Tombstone
Delayed an entire day taking Champion out, the cattle baron's invaders completely lose the element of surprise they had worked so hard to achieve. Word of the WSGA killers spreads like a prairie fire (thanks to Flagg and his stepson reaching Trabling's Postoffice, about 16 miles south of Buffalo, and KC Ranch neighbor, Terrence Smith, who alerts the citizens of Buffalo of the dangerous threat that is headed their way. Multiple posses converging on the invaders, eventually over 300 men, led by Buffalo Sheriff William G. "Red" Angus (also on the WSGA list of those to be killed) surround the invaders at the T.A. Ranch on Crazy Woman Creek and the second siege of the war begins, with an ending that might have been the same if gunman Mike Shonsey hadn't escaped and gotten word to WSGA friendly Governor Barber, who in turn notifies President Benjamin Harrison and asks for help in quelling an "insurrection," which is soon provided in the form of Troops C, D, and H of the 6th United States Cavalry Regiment out of nearby Fort McKinney, under the command of Colonel J.J. Van Horn. Killers turned captives, though charges are filed, the corruption and cash of the cattle barons allows everyone to eventually go free (released on bond by money from the Cheyenne Club, the Texans return home and never come back to Wyoming, and bills kill the poor county's ability to prosecute several individuals like Frank Canton, who leaves the state and is allowed to continue his career as a "lawman" in the wilds of the Indian Territory by "The Hanging Judge," Isaac Charles Parker) though for many of the homesteaders attacked, the animosity never really ends.
Sheriff Angus
The TA Ranch
Rounded Up Assassins
The war finally pitters out with a handful of killings that include U.S. Marshal George Wellman, a rider for the WSGA being ambushed and killed by unknown locals outside the town of Buffalo on May 10, 1892, a "Buffalo" soldier of the 9th Cavalry (which has replaced the 6th Cavalry in trying to bring peace to the area) is killed and two other soldiers wounded in a gunfight with a group of settlers in the town of Suggs, Wyoming, and in the fall of 1892, range detectives gun down two alleged rustlers east of the Big Horn River. Sadly, Dudley Champion, out of the state on business when his brother is murdered, becomes the conflict's last victim on May 24, 1893. Riding through the county seeking cowboy work, fifteen miles outside the town of Manville, Wyoming, Dudley comes upon Mike Shonsey, the same man that rode with the Regulators and got word to the governor that the WSGA force was trapped at the T.A. Ranch, and the same man that Nate Champion believed was involved in the night attack he survived in November of 1891. Recognizing Dudley as Nate's brother, believing he is about to be attacked, without discussion, Shonsey brings his rifle up and shoots the cowboy out of his saddle. Turning himself in after the killing, Shonsey claims self-defense and is released by local authorities of Douglas, Wyoming, decides the state is too dangerous, and relocates to Nebraska where he becomes a successful stock grower.
Shonsey
War long over, whatever the reality of his long ago time in Johnson County, Nate Champion is still remembered in the area as a western hero of epic proportions. The subject of books and magazine articles, and is played on film by Academy Award winning actor, Christopher Walken in loosely based box-office bomb about the Johnson County War, director Michaek Cimino's "Heaven's Gate." But his finest tribute might just be the statue created in Nate's likeness by local Buffalo artist, D. Michael Thomas. Standing in front of the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum in Buffalo, Wyoming, the town Champion's last stand helped saved back in 1892, erected in 2008, Nate is depicted on the last run of his life, captured forever in bronze trying to make the safety of an unsafe ravine near his cabin ... a hero.
Sold Out Small Version
Historical Marker - Nate Champion's Last Run
On Fort Street Near Adams Avenue
Run, Nate, Run!
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