The Hashknife Outfit Essay Research Paper Section — страница 3

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Hashknife) are told by people in northern Arizona whose families have been there since the railroad of the things done to people by the Hashknife cowboys. One story is about 3 innocent men who were hanged just outside the present town of Heber. One was a horse trader who had family back East with money. When things weren’t going well with the horses, the family sent the guy money. Rumors started that he was stealing and selling other people’s horses. He was also always very nice to let people stay in his home when they were on the road. Some of the outlaws that worked for the Hashknife were said to take things into their own hands and hung the horse trader and two travelers who were visiting in his home. No one ever stood trial for the hangings (Durham 261-262). Another thing

that happened, that didn’t start as anything to do with the Hashknife, but soon was made worse by the outlaws, is known as "The Pleasant Valley War." Pleasant Valley is mostly all south of the land owned by the Aztec Land and Cattle Company, but it was close enough for them to become involved. A cattle rancher named "Stinson" was losing alot of cattle to some rustlers named "Graham" who’d been riding for him, and to some sheepmen named "Tewksbury"–who were also hired by him and stealing his cattle. Even though the rancher tried to have them all hung, no court ever found any of them guilty. The Grahams started running cattle on their own place, and just naturally hated sheepmen. Like most cattle people those days, they felt that the

sheep men and their fences, and the way the sheep overgraze the grass, were why cattle weren’t doing very good. For a while, sheepmen actuall made more money than the cattle men, and that really made alot of people (most were cattlemen originally from Texas where sheepmen had already gotten in their way) very angry. The outlaws and trouble makers who worked for the Hashknife Outfit, a cattle operation, usuall did everything they could to keep settlers and especially sheep people from crossing Aztec Company land. A lot of old stories are told there about flocks of sheep being driven into the river and drowned, or herds of horses being stampeded over the top of them. While the Hashknife cowboys were causing all this trouble, the Grahams and the Tewksburys were making more trouble

for Stinson, who had had his fill of all of them, too. A mistake was made by one of the Tewksbury’s, who apologized to Stinson, and one of Stinson’s hired men used the excuse to start trouble. In self-defense, the Tewksbury man shot at the hired hand and hit him in the leg. The hired hand rode straight over to the Grahams and told them he’d been attacked (That was the first shot of the Pleasant Valley War.) (Carlock n.p.). The Tewksbury was sent to Prescott for trial, but died before the hearing. The Tewksbury’s blamed his death on the Grahams. More sheep were being brought onto the Tewksbury’s ranch about this same time. Soon one of the Tewksbury’s shepherds was killed–it was never "proven" that the Grahams killed him. This killing led to more shooting

and killing and the involvement of the "Blevins" gang–employees of the Hashknife Outfit–of Holbrook. The killings went on, back and forth for almost 5 years until the last of the Grahams was dead, the last of the Tewksburys left the area, and Sheriff Commodore Perry Owens of Holbrook had killed the Blevins’(Carlock n.p.). Other stories tell of barroom brawls (one bar in Holbrook was actually renamed "The Bucket of Blood Saloon" because of the killing), shooting up the towns in and around Holbrook and Winslow, settlers who were burned out, killed, or "went missing," and many more troubles as long as the Hashknife Outfit was in business. Section 3: Conclusion The land no longer looked like a tall-grass prairie; it was a desert with huge ditches

gouged out. The Hashknife Outfit had brought so many cattle into a dry grazing area, that they had completely destroyed the natural grasses. The droughts and freezes had succeeded in finishing off what little cattle business was left after the starvation. When the Hashknife cattle started dying off and were eventually sold out, and the once gigantic cattle power was gone, northern Arizona settled down to a peaceful, quiet place. Well, for as quiet and peaceful as a frontier state that still had unsettled Native Americans, lawless fugitives, gamblers and miners could get. There was very little bloodshed after the Blevins gang was killed off at the end of the Pleasant Valley war. The harrassing and killing that the Hashknife’s hired guns were known for was part of a past era that