It was the summer of 1889 when homesteaders Ella Watson and Jim Averell met their untimely end. The pair were accused of cattle rustling and lynched by a party of cattlemen led by rancher Albert Bothwell. But the tale behind the lynching was one of greed and deceit.
Watson and Averell were recently married and industriously staking out their homestead claims in the Sweetwater River Valley in central Wyoming. Bothwell had taken an interest in their property, and he was determined to use any means to claim it as his own.
News of the lynching was reported in the Cheyenne newspapers, but they got the story wrong. The press claimed that the rustler hanged was a prostitute named “Cattle Kate”. In fact, Ella Watson was neither a prostitute nor a rustler.
Composer George W. Hufsmith set the record straight. After extensive research, Hufsmith wrote an opera titled The Sweetwater Lynching in 1976. He also penned a book in 1993, titled The Wyoming Lynching of Cattle Kate.
See the George W. Hufsmith papers at UW’s American Heritage Center to learn more.