Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

 

Date of this Version

1892

Abstract

"A Review of the Cattle Business in Johnson County, Wyoming, Since 1882, and the Causes That Led to the Recent Invasion" by Oscar H. Flagg has been ignored by every historian of the period until now with the exception of one who borrowed extensively from it without acknowledgment. Never yet between covers, it ran serially in the weekly Buffalo (Wyoming) Bulletin for eleven installments in 1892, the first appearing when Nate Champion was scarcely three weeks in his grave. The book is biased where its author's personal conflicts are involved but is largely accurate in regard to general facts, as revealed by crosschecking with other sources. It gives the best close-up picture in existence of the feuds on Powder River, and it is a remarkable piece of work in view of its author's lack of training.

"Jack Flagg was born in West Virginia in 1861 and left home as a lad to go to Texas at the height of the cow-trail fever. He came up to Wyoming with a herd in 1882 and thereafter punched cows in Johnson County, working at least three years for the English-owned Bar C outfit on Powder River. Then he was blackballed by the all-powerful Stock-Grower's Association, which amounted to declaring him an outlaw. In return he declared war on the big outfits. From their point of view they were quite right in calling him a dangerous man." -- Helena Huntington Smith in her War on Powder River (McGraw-Hill, cl966)

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