1889 ~ The Tragedy of Cattle Kate


‘Cattle Kate’ and Postmaster Averill, lynched. Stockmen a Sweetwater, Wyo., July 21, end the career of a lawless pair of depredators – swung from a cottonwood at the rope’s end. Undated illustration. Bettmann / Contributor

Newspapers reported that cowgirl Ella Watson was a no-good thief who deserved the vigilante killing that befell her, when in reality, she was anything but

Eliza McGraw | History Correspondent March 12, 2018

On July 20, 1889, in a gulch by Wyoming’s Sweetwater River, six cattlemen lynched a man and a woman accused of cattle rustling. As the purported bodies twisted from the same tree limb, a rider galloped toward the town of Rawlins with the news: cattlemen had exacted revenge on two ruthless thieves, Jim Averell and Ella Watson, the woman they called Cattle Kate.

history.com for the complete article

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