In the early 1880s, visitors in the Klickitat Valley, just across the Columbia River from The Dalles and Biggs Junction, recalled seeing some very singular signs posted regularly along the right-of-way:

NOTISE:

All land in woods past

Draper Springs is for Settlers

cattle. No sheep is allowed.

Sheep men take notise.

   — Comitee

By “Comitee,” it was clearly understood, the writer meant some sort of vigilance committee, a coalition of cattle ranchers and sodbusters who had come together to fight the encroachment of the flocks of sheep that seemed to be taking over the public rangeland. Similar signs, and “comitees,” were springing up all across the Columbia River basin. And over the decades to come, the problem would only get worse … and bloodier.

Luckily, nearly all of the blood would be coming from sheep, not men. (Central and Eastern Oregon; 1880s, 1890s, 1900s) (For text and pictures, see https://offbeatoregon.com/2401b-1009c.sheepshooters-089.630.html)