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Deep Creek Murders
:''This event should not be confused with the Deep Creek Massacre in 1887.''
The Deep Creek Murders was the culmination of a minor sheep war in the borderlands of Idaho and Nevada. On or about February 4, 1896, two Mormon sheepherders were killed by an unknown assailant while they were camping along a creek in what was then part of Cassia County, Idaho. The gunfighter Diamondfield Jack Davis and his associate, Jack Gleason, were arrested, but the latter was released and Diamondfield Jack was pardoned in 1902, after serving six years in jail. The deaths of the two sheepherders are the only confirmed killings attributed to the conflict, however, according to author J. Anthony Lukas, the incident was "one of the last great confrontations in the sheep and cattle wars."
==Background==
The leading figure in the conflict was a prominent cattleman named John Sparks. Sparks came to southern Idaho from Nevada in the early 1870s. A former Texas Ranger, Sparks was one of the first people to explore what was still a very isolated wilderness. Sparks later became the partner of another rancher named Jasper Harrell and eventually they established series of ranches on both sides of the Idaho-Nevada border. By the summer of 1895, Sparks was the most powerful cattleman in Idaho. He controlled huge stretches of territory, though his ownership was still mostly unofficial. Sparks felt that because he had used the lands for so many years without opposition, there was no way he was going to let the hated sheep destroy it. That year a wave of Mormons and Basques left Utah and headed north for Nevada and Idaho. Sheepherding was very popular in Utah so, when they left, the Mormons and Basques brought their sheep with them. Grazing sheep often proved to be very destructive to the environment, which cattlemen relied on for their livelihood. Sheepmen were known for letting their animals strip a pastureland of all vegetation, leaving it useless for the cattlemen who needed to use it next. Sheep also polluted water sources to where cattle would not use them. For this, cowboys referred to sheep as "desert maggots," or "hoofed locusts." Both of these factors prompted many cattlemen to begin building fences, or establishing deadlines, a type of boundary which sheep were not permitted to cross. John Sparks ran one of these deadlines through Elko County, Nevada and Cassia County, Idaho. Sheepmen were not allowed to go either west or south of the line. Sparks also hired several gunfighters as range detectives to "keep the sheep back."〔
Usually, the range detectives would simply threaten the herders and occasionally shoot up a flock, their only orders were to "shoot to wound", but only "if necessary." Diamondfield Jack Davis was the most famous of the detectives and he was known for being exceptionally bloodthirsty. He led many of the raids in northern Nevada and even poisoned water sources with salt, making them unusable for either faction. During one of his forays, Diamondfield Jack wounded a sheepherder, named Bill Tolman, which was how the war began. Additional raids followed, but actual combat was limited because most of the sheepherders were too frightened to resist. One man was so afraid that he camped in the middle of his flock, hoping to evade patrolling cowboys. One night, about thirty of his sheep were shot dead around him, but he escaped unharmed.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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