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repots noted excellent pastc*3ge on much of the Western Slope (?ia~:den 1378: 67-8 and .5=-3). • A handful of cattlemen, including Steamboat Springs founder James H. Crawford, already knew of the grazin; potential of the region. They already encroached on the edges of [.he Ute Reservation, which covered approximately the western one-third of Colorado, for pasrurage by the time that Hayden published his reports in 1878 (Goff a:.d McCaifree 1967: 46). Cattie:ner., aware of the area's potential, waited impatierdy for the opening of the Ute Reservation, w~ich finally came in 1881. Cattlemen, armed with Hayden's repots and their resolve bolstered by the information offered by individuals such as J.H. Crawford, were among the first permz^.ent seltlers into much of the area when the government opened the Reservation for settlement. The United Stales cattle industry chanced and exv_ anded r~idly after the Civil War. The boom pe^od continued for slightly more titan tw~eaty years. The success stories from that perod, refe-red to as the "Beef Bonanza," encouraged hundreds of individuals to ta':e advantage of the vast, open spaces or the Amercan West as a route to easy, Hearty instant wealth. The arguments used by supporters of the cattle boom relied heavily on the economics of the indus*zy. For example, a calf or cow, worth about 34 in Texas could be taken to another ranch, fed on the grasses of the unclaimed public domain for no chazge and then sold after about three years for 540 to SSO at market. As long as America's demand for beef went unsatisfied and the grasslands were available, cattlemen saw no limits to their riches. This dream of wealth already realized by Colorado stockmen, such as J. W. Prowers, on the eastern plains motivated hundreds to move to the Western Slope (Osgood 1929: 85-91). Congress helped stimulate the spread of the beef bonanza through their liberalization of the land laws beginning with the Homestead Act of 1862. Congress, responding to pressure from settlers and would-be settlers, started to use the Public Domain as a lure to encourage people to move west and people the territories and states of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. During the 1870s the national legislature passed two more laws, the Desert Land Act and the Timber Culture Act that further liberalized the use and claiming of Federal lands. In 1882 the provisions of these laws were extended to the former Ute lands through the Ute Reservation Act of 1882. The land laws had many loopholes making fraudulent use of the lands a common practice (Robbins 1976: 218-20). In addition to the abuses of the land laws, cattlemen also took advantage of the Public Domain in other ways, such as fencing waterholes. John W. Prowers brought [he first bazbed wire to Colorado in 1878 and by 1884 its use had spread across the state. The competition for the waterholes, exacerbated by the fencing, often caused trouble between rival stock growers throughout Colorado. In 1884, alarmed by reports of the violence, Congress investigated the situation and the next year President Grover Cleveland ordered all fences removed from public lands. However, many illegal fences remained in place unril the 1890s (Goff and McCaifree 1967: 120, 144-6). As part of the reforms made during the 1840s, Congress introduced a system of withdrawals of Federal lands for forest reserves. This removed land from constant usage and was designed to conserve national lands for subsequent generations. However, the legislators recognized the 9