“Queen Ann Bassett” was a rancher in the Brown’s Park area of northwest Colorado. In 1900, her fiancé, Matt Rash, was assassinated by Tom Horn as part of a range war between big and small ranchers. Ann Bassett jumped into the fray.
She blamed cattle baron Ora Haley for financing Rash’s murder. In retaliation, she drove Haley’s cattle off the open range—and probably took a few of them for her own herds. Her personal war against Haley went on for more than a decade.
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