By Bob Welch | Story from 2024 Fall Ranch Record
This 1909 Charlie Russell painting, “The Cinch Ring,” depicts cattle rustlers caught in the act.
Some of the most dramatic and enduring stories of the American Frontier revolve around livestock theft. In the early days of westward expansion, a man’s horse was his lifeline across waterless plains. Stealing a man’s horse was tantamount to murder. As such, capital punishment for the offense was widely accepted. Exacerbating the issue was a lack of formal civilization or law enforcement in many of these places. Often, unofficial, vigilante justice was the only recourse for stock thieves in the frontier.
Captain Richard King hired extra riders and equipped them with Henry rifles. Later, he and partner Mifflin Kenedy founded the Stock Raisers of Western Texas in 1870 to more formally combat the issue. Finally, after a particularly violent livestock raid, the partners prevailed upon the Texas Rangers – Capt. Leander McNelly in particular– to get a handle on the trouble.
Further north, int he Panhandle, Charles Goodnight’s handling of the livestock rustling is chronicled in an entire chapter of J. Evetts Haley’s biography of the legendary cowman and plainsman.
One particularly humorous story occurred in Pueblo, Colo., where Goodnight had just brought his new bride, Mary, from Texas. On the evening they arrived, two cattle thieves were hung from a telegraph pole. When Mrs. Goodnight heard of the incident, she expressed considerable distress.
Haley relates the story thusly, “Having been married such a short while, and not accustomed to making excuses,” Goodnight recalled, “I hardly knew how to reply, but finally stammered out in a very abashed manner, ‘Well, I don’t think it hurt the telegraph pole.'”
Controversial cowboy Tom Horn made an infamous living working for independent ranchers and stock growers’ associations to curb rustling in Colorado and Wyoming during the late 1800s.
Further north, Tom Horn made an infamous living working for independent ranchers and stock growers’ associations to curb rustling in Colorado and Wyoming. His methods were often called to question, but his effectiveness was not. He later found guilty of killing a boy in a cattlemen vs. sheepmen conflict and sentenced to hang.
Over time, as more settlers moved West, communities began to organize. Despite the presence of marshals, sheriffs and deputies, ranchers created county, regional and state livestock associations. For most states and regions, the first purpose of these associations was to combat theft.
Eventually, in many Western states, brand boards began to emerge from these associations. Brand boards became the official chronicler and inspectors for livestock brands and sales. To this day, many states require a brand inspection for any sale of livestock.
In Texas and Oklahoma, the Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association formed in 1877 and created a Special Ranger Division responsible for preventing and investigating livestock theft. Their website includes a Crime Watch section and publishers reports on missing cattle as well as a way to easily search the Ranger in a particular area should a rancher or farmer need their services.
Most physical cattle theft cases are small-scale, however the use of cattle (or the lack thereof) in Ponzi schemes and fraud is on the rise. Recently, in Iowa, Michael Butikofer was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison and ordered to pay over $5.7 million in restitution to his victims for crimes revolving around his cattle operation.
Butikofer, according to the United States Attorney’s office, converted the proceeds of sales owned by eight cattle investors, totaling over $2.5 million, to his own use. He also defrauded the USDA over more than $1.2 million in emergency assistance funds set aside for producers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, he received over $1.5 million from the Small Business Administration as part of an application for an Economic Injury Disaster Loan.
He also committed several other serious crimes not related to cattle theft– including threatening his employees with hanging.
After all his crimes, he’s probably lucky that the old timers like Charlie Goodnight aren’t around to dispense frontier justice.
This report from the Elbert County, Colorado, Coroner’s Jury demonstrates how pioneers dealt with purported livestock thieves in the territorial days. The report appears in “Century in the Saddle” by Richard Goff and Robert H. McCaffree.
The script reads:
Territory of Colorado
County of Elbert
August 26th 1874 before John MatherCoroner of said county, upon the Dead bodies of Jasper Marion, Tipton Marion, Jerome Wilson, and Richard Thompson lying there dead we the jurors whose names are hereto inscribed. The said jurors upon their oath do say some time between one and seven o’clock this morning by some unknown persons by being hung by the neck to the limbs of a pine tree that death was caused to the aforesaid persons. The testimony whereof the said jurors have hereunto set their hands the day and year aforesaid.
Signed by
E.P. Clark
H. Liesher
Robert McDaniels
John P Benough
RL Wood
Ineligible
Jurors
