In 1904, a fight here involved almost every man in Ector County over filing a claim for four sections of public land. Elias Dawson and Charlie Lewis each brought friends to help him file. Before the courthouse doors opened, several men had clothes or boots torn off in foes' efforts to find filing papers. When the doors opened, a man was boosted over the heads of the crowd, and Lewis won the four sections of land. Texas as a republic owned over 200,000,000 acres of public land and used land to attract settlers, pay soldiers, and set up school funds. At annexation, Texas retained its public lands, the only state to do so. In a boundary dispute it ceded 63,552,144 acres, used land to pay for railroads, harbors, and canals, compensated Civil War soldiers or widows with land, and traded 3,000,000 acres for a state capitol. By 1883 its lands were over-committed, and free grazing had to be stopped. Terminations of leases and corrections of surveys later made some land available for filing, leading to the 1904 rush. In one courthouse, a man hid overnight to be first in line. Cattle chutes to a clerk's window would be lined for months with men hoping to file. Cowboys and farmers battled, and filing was a challenge.