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61 Chapter Four THE LINCOLN COUNTY WAR Y T hroughout the decade of the 1870s, men commonly identified with the Santa Fe Ring seemingly had fingers in every pie. Their economic interests included land, mining, ranching, railroad building, banking , wholesale and retail merchandising, and government contracts. Their involvement in these endeavors provided powerful incentives for pursuit of favorable executive, legislative, and judicial decisions in Santa Fe and in Washington. Wherever there was something of value—agricultural or grazing land, mineral deposits, water, timber, Indian agencies, and military contracts , for example—men associated with the Ring were likely to be visible. Presumed Ring principals had allies in nearly every county. They could mobilize political leaders across the territory, and in some cases judges, jurymen , and officers of the court appeared to be at the disposal of leading Ring figures. When the powers of government could be aligned to support their interests, chances for profitable outcomes were wonderfully enhanced. The violent conflict popularly known as the Lincoln County War was the product of a time in which opportunities for financial gain were objects of serious competition. Territorial administration was weak and often corrupt, and outlying parts of the territory existed in a state approaching anarchy. Local officials and itinerating judges imposed a semblance of legal process, but a persistent tendency toward corruption often skewed the results. When push came to shove in local disputes, the forces of law and order were frequently left shorthanded with the scarce resources available to govern a vast territory characterized by extremes in geography and climate. Popular and historical treatments of the Lincoln County War include carefully researched works by capable scholars. These writings typically portray the Lincoln County War as a conflict of competing economic interests, involving a company bent on maintaining its position and an emergent 62 Chapter Four faction eager to capture a major part of the available trade in merchandising, banking, raising livestock, contracting, and other enterprises. The dominant commercial force in Lincoln County was the enterprise of Lawrence G. Murphy and his associates, including Emil Fritz, James J. Dolan, and John H. Riley. The firm’s composition changed over time, first with the death of Fritz in June 1874, then with the illness that led to Murphy’s departure from Lincoln in May 1878 and his death in October of that year. The firm first known as L. G. Murphy & Company later became J. J. Dolan & Company, but local residents knew it mainly as the House of Murphy, or simply, the “House.”1 An upstart group was led by John Henry Tunstall, a brash young Englishman who was determined to break the monopoly of the “House.” His principal collaborator was Alexander McSween, an attorney. All were immigrants to the United States. Murphy, Dolan, and Riley were Irish. Fritz was German-born. Tunstall was British, and McSween claimed Scottish origin but may have been born in Canada.2 A third group, somewhat allied with Tunstall and McSween, was led by John Chisum, a Tennessee native who had established a large ranching operation on the Pecos River. An escalation of commercial and legal disputes, intensified by personal animosities, led to one of the most violent conflicts in western American history—an episode that has spawned myriad print and cinematic works, including memoirs, documentary histories, historical novels, pulp Western magazines, B-Western movies, and more serious films. Fraught with conflicting accounts and interpretations, and embracing common dramatic elements of greed, violence, and political intrigue, the story continues to fascinate scholars, history buffs, artists and writers, and tourists. Among other consequences, the feud wrecked the hopes of both parties seeking to gain economic supremacy and left Lincoln with a reputation for violence and lawlessness. It also launched the public career of an enduring figure in western myth, in the person of William Bonney, known to some as El Chivato and to others as Billy the Kid. The involvement of the Santa Fe Ring in the Lincoln County conflict was largely a result of business and political alliances that were established before the trouble began. In a deposition given in June 1878, Jimmy Dolan, a partner with Murphy since 1874, acknowledged the firm’s long-standing relationship with the First National Bank of Santa Fe.3 Founded in 1870 by Lucien Maxwell and associates, the bank had passed into the hands of a group led by Stephen Elkins and Thomas Catron, with Elkins serving as president and the two holding a majority of the stock.4 The...

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