A Vast Amount of Trouble: A History of the Spring Creek Raid - Hardcover

Davis, John W.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0870813102 ISBN 13: 9780870813108

Publisher: Univ Pr of Colorado, 1993

Synopsis

A Vast Amount of Trouble is the first comprehensive study of the most important incident between sheepmen and cattlemen in Wyoming history. Although sheep raids in Wyoming had occurred for years, where men were killed and thousands of sheep slaughtered, no cowboy had ever been convicted of a crime associated with a sheep raid.
The story begins in late March 1909, when five sheepmen headed east from Worland, Wyoming, driving 5,000 head of sheep. A few days later the men and their sheep camped on the banks of Spring Creek, where they thought they had safely brought the herd across the cattlemen's deadline, beyond which sheep were forbidden. That evening, however, the camp was raided by seven cowboys, and three of the sheepmen were brutally murdered.
State v. Brink, the trial that followed what is now known as the Spring Creek Raid, was one of the great symbolic struggles in Wyoming history - the final focus of the decades-long battle between sheepmen and cattlemen. Before the trial ended, the governor of Wyoming became deeply involved as did the French ambassador to the United States. Big Horn County almost went broke, the militia was called out, and many people went through an experience that became the defining event of their lives.
The convictions of Herbert Brink and four of the assailants marked the only time that cowboys in Wyoming were found guilty of raiding a sheep camp, but the convictions put an abrupt halt to the killing that had plagued Wyoming for years.

About this title

About the Author:

John W. Davis, who resides in Worland, Wyoming, has practiced law in the Big Horn Basin for more than forty years. He is the author of A Vast Amount of Trouble: A History of the Spring Creek Raid andGoodbye, Judge Lynch: The End of a Lawless Era in Wyoming's Big Horn Basin.

About this edition

• Publisher: Univ Pr of Colorado
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0870813102
• ISBN 13: 9780870813108
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 301