The Hay Meadow massacre occurred on July 25, 1888, and was the most violent event of the Stevens County War in Kansas.

Not finding them, they camped for the night on a hay meadow at Wild Horse Lake, just across the border in the present-day Oklahoma.

Locating the Woodsdale camp at the hay meadow, they surrounded the Sheriff's party, killed four members, and injured the fifth.

However, the surviving member and a group of haymakers who witnessed the event stated that the Woodsdale party had been captured, disarmed, and then executed.

The state militia was called out and the Hugoton men arrested, but it was soon determined that no court had jurisdiction in No Man's Land.