Range Wars

The Range Wars were a series of conflicts between the ranch/cattle owners and the farmers, or "homesteaders. Often this were armed conflicts dealing with who had the right to be out in the American West; the ranchers who built up the territories or the homesteaders who received government land to farm.  By the time of the Virginian in 1897, the Range Wars were not as common as they had been even four years earlier when the Johnson County Wars occurred.  Nevertheless, there was still some tensions between the farmers and the ranchers (particularly the large rich ranchers) and the threat of another Range War was still very real.