When the average modern American thinks of the Old West, he often thinks of cattle drives, outlaws and lawmen, and John Wayne; things they see in western movies. Another staple in Western films is remote warfare. It is important for modern Americans to know which parts of the West were real and which were false. The Range Wars of the late 1800s were important for rights and responsibilities because they changed the way many people lived in the West and Midwest, finally establishing the concept of private and public property. The range wars were fought for a variety of reasons. Some were fought between cattle ranchers and sheep herders, some between cattle ranchers and farmers, some between “free herders” (people who moved their livestock into open pastures that no one owned) and cattle ranchers, and even some between ranchers competitors. Some of the larger wars were well known and covered by newspapers in large cities such as Denver, San Francisco, and even as far away as Chicago. One of the most famous of these conflicts was the Lincoln County War of 1878, in Lincoln County, New Mexico. In reality the issue was not about livestock at all, but about the control of the trade in dry products. One side was led by Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan. Murphy had a monopoly on dry goods and therefore could control prices on everything. They faced opposition from John Tunstall, an Englishman, and his business partner Alexander McSween, a lawyer. Tunstall and McSween were backed by John Chisum, one of the county's largest ranchers, who was tired of paying Murphy's prices for goods. The Lincoln County War was also the beginning of the infamous feud between Sheriff Pat Garret and the outlaw Billy the Kid, who worked for Tunstall before the ing...... middle of paper ...... today their trademarks are registered and records are kept in each state by trademark enforcement agencies. There is no such thing as “free reign” anymore, all land is owned by private landowners or corporations, or by state and national government such as state parks, national parks, state and national forests, and national grasslands. The rustling still occurs today, although it is rare. Instead of heavily armed bandits stealing livestock on horseback, modern thieves usually pose as truck drivers and sell the livestock under assumed names on a kind of black market. Even though the days of gun wars are over, they are still an important part of Hollywood and literature. Many Western movies are based on actual long-distance wars, and books by authors like Louis L'amour and Zane Gray romanticized the long-distance wars of the late 1800s. They will forever be an important part of our nation's history.