Nate Champion and Nick Rae

The panel's two trappers were Ben Jones and Bill Walker, down from the Bighorns on April 8 and put up for the night; after supper Walker brought out his fiddle. Jones went for water at dawn and was taken, then Walker going to look for him, and Walker spent the day held in the stable watching the cabin burn. Witnesses to a killing, they ended up in Westerly, Rhode Island, waiting on money the stockgrowers had promised them, and when they were finally told they could go, the checks bounced.

What the plaque says

Nate Champion and Nick Rae In the early 1890's, a series of localized conflicts characterized by competition for resources, accusations of cattle rustling, and issues of cattle management broke into a shooting conflict in Johnson County in 1892. Large cattle owners, associated with the Wyoming Stock Growers Association, hired Tom Smith of Texas to employ gunmen to seek out and kill small ranchers accused of cattle rustling. On April 5, 1892 the men boarded a train from Cheyenne, Wyoming and made their way to Johnson County. The fifty men, known in popular history as the "Johnston County Invaders," reached the K. C. Ranch on the morning of April 9, 1892, under the suspicion that several suspected cattle rustlers where staying there. Four men - two trappers and alleged rustlers Nate Champion and Nick Rae - were ambushed at sunrise. That morning the gunmen captured the two trappers when they ventured out for water. Shortly after, Rae emerged from the cabin and was wounded by a shot from the waiting men. Rae, assisted by Champion, crawled back to the cabin and the two men found themselves under siege throughout the day. By late afternoon, the gunmen, unable to approach the cabin because of Champion's defense, loaded a wagon with flammable material, set it aflame, and pushed it near the cabin. Champion attempted to escape from the cabin and was shot and killed. Rae died from his wounds earlier that afternoon. Passerby Oscar Flagg saw the siege at the K. C. Ranch and rushed back to Buffalo, Wyoming to warn citizens of the attack. Two days later, 200 citizens surrounded the men at the nearby T. A. Ranch. The gunmen surrendered under the protection of the U. S. Army. The hired gunmen were never convicted for their role in Rae and Champion's death.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

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