Mercer, A.S.: Boots, John Mercer:

$375 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

POWDER RIVER INVASION WAR ON THE RUSTLERS IN 1892. The first reprint of Mercer's infamously scarce BANDITTI OF THE PLAINS, "rewritten" by John Mercer Boots. This is one of the most famous books on the cattle industry, growing out of the Johnson County War in Wyoming in 1892, one of the last major upheavals of frontier violence which pitted the large, established members of the Wyoming Stock Growers' Association against the smaller cattlemen and squatters on the range. In the course of the bloody conflict Mercer, editor of the NORTHWESTERN LIVESTOCK GROWER, took the side of the small growers and produced this vitriolic work. The entire issue of the original was impounded by a court due to a libel suit and ordered to be destroyed. A number of copies survived however, and members of the Stock Growers' Association reportedly continued attempts to suppress their continued circulation. Mercer himself was ordered to leave Wyoming after his print shop was burned to the ground.

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