My Life on the Range

"John Clay, Jr., was one of the more colorful and influential figures of the great Wild West." -Livestock Industry Hall of Fame, Saddle & Sirloin Portrait Foundation, June 11, 2019

"They say of John Clay that he knows every steer in the United States by its first name. It is probably true that he knows every cattle shipper in the United States, and that they all know him. What is more, he knows cattle...sold $125,000,000 worth of livestock on commission." -The World's Work (1912)

"Wyoming's Range war between cattle barons and homesteaders...on one side were people like Cattle Kate...on the side of the cattle barons was John Clay...a ranch manager for Scottish investors...he did voice support for the gunman's invasion." -Missoulian, March 10, 2014

"Mr. Clay is one of the outstanding figures in the livestock and banking business of the northwest...a most graphic recital of the varied experiences of a man who...has developed into one of the cattle and sheep barons of the country...replete with most interesting recitals of the development of the livestock industry in the U.S." -Billings Gazette, Nov. 25, 1924

What role did the Scottish cattle baron ranch manager John Clay play in Wyoming's range war between cattle barons and homesteaders and was he responsible for hiring Tom Horn?

Presenting the cattle baron's viewpoint, John Clay published his account of early Wyoming cattle ranching struggles in his 1924 autobiography, My Life on the Range (republished here for the convenience of the interested reader.)

Clay was a Scottish-born manager of a large ranching outfit in Wyoming for Scottish cattle barons in the 1880s. He would become president of the Wyoming Stock Grower's Association. He played a major role in the development of the cattle industry in Wyoming and surrounding states in the 1880s, particularly in management and financing of such operations.

In describing his first time in cattle country after his travels from Scottland, Clay writes:

"I ... woke up one morning at North Platte, in the latter state, to taste on the platform of the depot that champagne air, otherwise known as the lure of the West. No plummet can fathom the depth of that well, no language can spell the loyalty of a man's heart to his adopted land, for in those days a native-born Westerner was scarcely known. There was a freedom, a romance, a sort of mystic halo hanging over those green, grassy, swelling divides that was impregnated, grafted into your system. ... It was another world; the rough, ready, joyous prospect of a broader field on windswept plains blotted out for the time being softer scenes, where pleasant meadow lands and fields of golden grain with far-off heather hills lay five thousand miles away."