The Sweet Life on the Ranch

Many Europeans wanted to establish themselves as cattle barons in the US West at the same time reproducing their luxurious lifestyle that they had lived overseas.  Marquis de Mores, a titled Frenchman, settled in the Dakota Badlands with 20 servants in a mansion that he built, in the town of Medora which he also built.  His interests included beef and sheep ranching, a stagecoach line, a refrigeration-car company, a slaughterhouse, and a salmon shipping company.  However, Mores wasn't much of a businessman and by the 1889, he had left America and returned to his native France. 

Other foreigners fared much better.  A frugal Scotsman, Maurdo McKensize, managed the Matador Ranch, with holdings in both Texas and Montana.  The Matador paid a steady 15% to its investors over the next three decades.  Another impressive English ranch, The XIT Ranch, added 15,000 miles of Montana range in the 1880s and went on to establish a trail between Texas and Montana that ran through seven states.

Life couldn't be better - the land was virtually free, the grass was free, labor was cheap and beef prices were rising.  Gentlemen's agreements governed water supplies and the branding and round-up rules.  The problems were ominous on the horizon, however, as homesteaders were staking claims, more and more ranchers were overstocking their land...the casual use of public domain could not continue.

Some ranchers tried to move further west for more land.  Others tried to buy or rent more land while they still could but that was expensive and it was becoming more difficult.  Big ranchers began using rougher methods - fencing in public land, using a six-shooter to discourage invasions on their lands, and even man-made prairie fires and stampedes, all in an effort to save their ranch lifestyle.

All this led to The Johnson Country War ...Next time.
___________________________________________
Today in Pioneer History:  "On August 9, 1877, Having refused government demands that they move to a reservation, a small band of Nez Perce Indians clash with the U.S. Army near the Big Hole River in Montana.