They said Cattle Kate was a dirty rustler and a filthy whore.
They cried out, “rangeland justice,” when she became the only woman ever lynched in the nation as a cattle rustler.
They called her killing “justified” when six prominent cattlemen strung her up with her secret husband on a hot July Saturday in 1889 in Wyoming Territory.
They said, “She had to be killed for the good of the country.”
Even now, in the 125th anniversary year of her death, plenty still say history got it right and that her lynching was good riddance to bad rubbish.
But as titillating as that legend is, it doesn’t hold a candle to the truth.
