Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1995
Abstract
What of the wider significance? Here Davis only meekly treads. The convictions seemingly changed the dynamics on the range, with the cattlemen subdued. But the trial did not do this alone. The changing power relationship had been a long time coming. Sheep had dominated the range for years before the raid, and in 1905 the Wyoming Wool Growers Association organized as an effective political agent. Davis touches on these points but does not stress them as vital to the success of the prosecution. At times, the sheriff and the county attorney seem to be battling everyone else in the county. Why did they persevere? What was their motivation? In the end, the sheriff becomes the warden of the state penitentiary and the county attorney gains a judgeship. Were there more political maneuvers involved than apparent? Tying the trial more emphatically to the wider political scene may have answered some of these questions, and would have placed the Spring Creek raid in a larger context. Nonetheless, Davis has written a very interesting and readable account of the raid, one that should appeal to Wyoming historians and those interested in Western legal history. But there is still room for more books on the sheep man-cattleman conflict.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly 15:1 (Winter 1995). Copyright © 1995 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.