| Photo of the Month November 2024 |
| See Previous Photos Unknown Faces and Places |
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| Nebraska State Historical Society |
Wyoming’s Johnson County War of 1892 was so epic, sprawling in detail and layered with meaning that, when turning the story into a Hollywood film in 1981, director Michael Cimino debuted his first cut of Heaven’s Gate at an astonishing 5:25 hours. Two decades later, the Hallmark Channel’s Johnson County War, starring Burt Reynolds, Tom Berenger and Rachel Ward, aired on television at a lesser but still overlong 4:00 hours.
The human dramas of the War, pitting wealthy cattle-owners and their hired Texas gunmen against common homesteaders and rustlers, are rife with twists, turns and entanglements. The events even swept into its fold our newlywed cousins Mike Shonsey (seen here) and his wife Olive (Sisler) Shonsey, on the owners’ side of the animosity. The storyline went on to inspire a host of other expressions in American popular culture. And it wasn’t a “war” at all, actually, but rather an ambitious assassination raid that failed in planning and execution.
Among the other better-known pop culture versions are the 1940s novel Shane by Jack Schaefer, later made into a popular film starring Alan Ladd Sr, and spoofed in episodes of television’s Batman in the 1960s with Cliff Robertson portraying the villain “Shame.” Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian, said to have been the prototype for the modern western, was adapted into a film with Gary Cooper followed by a television series loosely based on the original. Another version was The Invasion of Johnson County starring Bill Bixby and Bo Hopkins. A small library of books has been published on the topic.
A new Minerd.com research study of Mike's role, "Mike Shonsey and the Johnson County Cattle War," tries to simplify a highly complicated set of facts and opinions with the sharp plot twists and widely differing, complex and conflicting personalities. The words of the observers and authors who knew the story best are used throughout to bring us as close to the clarity of reality as possible.
Mike's wife Olive was born in 1866 in Preston County, WV, the daughter of Harrison L. "Harry" Sisler and stepdaughter of Susan V. (Martin) Sisler of the family of James K. and Margaret (Minerd) Martin. She accompanied her parents on a move to Minnesota in childhood. She was about age 11 when her mother died, and 15 when Susan Martin became her stepmother.
The newlywed Shonseys, who were married only a year before the raid, had settled in Wyoming for his employment. He was well known as a stock inspector and ranch foreman working for large cattle owners. Mike’s job as a hired man evolved into roles of scouting/espionage, planner and shootist in the War on the side of his employers. The first year-and-a-half of marriage for the young couple, in the big sky grasslands of Wyoming’s Powder River, was unlike anything most couples ever endure or survive. What they experienced, said one writer, was a “tragic and bizarre” set of circumstances that “split the young state from scalp to toenails.”
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Copyright © 2024 Mark A. Miner |
