The Borden County courthouse was the site of an anything-goes wrestling match on Feb. 27, 1904, with cowboys and sodbusters battling over dirt-cheap real estate in a once-in-a-lifetime sale.

A favorite subject of motion pictures and television has long been the “range war,” violent clashes between ranchers and homesteaders for the wide-open spaces.  While the West Texas real-estate row in the opening decade of the twentieth century featured plenty of bumps, bruises and bloody noses, ...