The Yakima Cattle Ring
A major cattle rustling operation is dismantled after detective work leads to hidden hides in Ellensburg.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An occurrence which promises to develop into a full-fledged gigantic sensation developed today in the arrest of Chet Carpenter and Charles Steadman who are charged with cattle stealing. It is alleged by stock raisers that hundreds of cattle have been run off the range in this county and taken to Kittitas for sale. The owners whose respective brands are on the animals have been banded together and secretly pushing the work leading to the identification of the guilty parties. The arrest of the men above named was occasioned by the result of detective work, which ended in finding the hides of some twenty-four head of cattle in the slaughter house yard of Fred Geddis in Ellensburg. These hides all bore brands belonging to the following Yakima men: A. Berwick, James Stephenson, Walter Griffith, J. M. Howe, George Wilson, Lon Cook and J. R. Patten.
“It is alleged by stock raisers who claim to know that hundreds of cattle have been run off the range in this county and taken to Kittitas for sale.”
Cattle rustling was a significant economic threat to the early agricultural industry of Central Washington. The use of brand identification remains a foundational practice in the region's livestock economy today.
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