Cattle Kate

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Ellen Liddy Watson — better known as Cattle Kate – was a young woman who escaped an abusive marriage in Kansas and came to Wyoming to homestead land near Lander in the late 1880s.

She and her new partner Jim Averell found themselves pitted in a resource war against the bigger ranchers in the area. Watson and Averell were charged with cattle rustling and were lynched over the Sweetwater River in July 1889. The trial of those accused of the deaths ended in acquittal as witnesses either died, disappeared, were bribed, or were intimidated into silence. The murders of “Cattle Kate”and Jim Averell helped to spark the Johnson County War in 1892.

Learn more about Cattle Kate and the Johnson County War. 

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