Seven die at Mussel Slough; a California land war turns lethal at a settler's homestead

A picnic in Hanford, California, broke apart on May 11, 1880, when word spread that railroad men were evicting settlers on Southern Pacific land five miles northwest of town. About twenty settlers rode out to confront them. Within minutes of the two parties meeting at Henry Brewer's homestead, seven men were dead — five settlers, and two men who had arrived with the U.S. Marshal's party — in a clash that had been building for more than a decade over land prices, broken promises, and a railroad that owned half the valley…