weapon of the speculator. Claim clubs acted not only to protect a squatter's title to land he lived on and was cultivating, but also to help the same squatter defend unoccupied second and third tracts against the claim of later arrivals. The institution of the claim club is said to have "reached perfection" in Iowa, where more than a hundred such groups carefully regulated land commerce until the United States government intervened. Examples One early claim club in the United States was established by settlers around Burlington, Iowa, where claims were formed before the Sac and Fox people ceded the area in 1832. These clubs were established in direct violation of federal law, in what J. Sterling Morton described as a claim meeting According to one report, "Such clubs sprang up 'as readily as did the sunflowers wherever the prairie sod was broken' in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska..." Other reports corroborate the spread of claim clubs, with their presence felt in the aforementioned states, as well as New Mexico, North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Colorado and Washington. Colorado In Colorado City, Colorado, the El Paso Claim Club was formed by members of the Colorado City Town Company in 1859. The Club reportedly "settled land disputes and recorded real property transactions until federal government regulations provided for an official land office in 1862." The Cañon City (Colorado) Claim Club first platted the town of Cañon City in 1860. The club had six members, each of whom mined coal, iron, gypsum, marble and granite mining in the area, and Denver also had a claim club. Nebraska The Omaha Claim Club was founded in 1854, the year the city was founded. Initially designed to protect the interests of 20 men, it grew to include almost two hundred settlers. The group used violent means to impose "frontier justice", including dunking in the frozen Missouri River, running off legitimate settlers, and other forms of vigilantism. The club imposed their will on the Nebraska Territorial Legislature as well, and with the passage of a territorial law granting per settler, they doubled the federally imposed limit of . The club ran Omaha until the Supreme Court ruled against their violent measures in Baker v. Morton, a hallmark in contract law cases. In the 1854 the Bellevue (Nebraska) Claim Club was organized. The original aim of the club was "to secure the peaceful adjustment of all cases in