SHERIDAN WYOMING : True West : In Big Sky Country, a Town Where the Cowboys Are Real and Cars Aren’t Locked

There had been unpleasantness with her boyfriend. Her ex-boyfriend, she meant. And so this young woman, a Sheridan resident for all of her 20 or so years, had straggled downtown to the Mint one slow night recently, there to punch up some Reba McEntire on the jukebox and sulk beneath the ancient tin ceiling and the festival of taxidermy above the bar.

The Mint is a long-necked Budweiser kind of place, with a neon bucking bronco on its sign out front, but this gal (hey, cut me some slack, we’re in Wyoming here) ordered a daiquiri and set to brooding, her back to the pool table. The stuffed animal heads stared blankly at the facing wall’s faded photos of trophy trout, conquered broncos, anglers, Native Americans and young wranglers who were now old men.

“Next time,” she said, “I’m getting a cowboy.”

In Sheridan, a woman can make such a pledge. And a stranger can find a bracing taste of the American West.

Sheridan, population 13,900, sits at the edge of the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming’s northeastern corner, lit by a big sky, animated by historic Main Street architecture, neighbored by pasturelands, snowy peaks, trout-bearing lakes and streams, working ranches, guest ranches and several monuments to 19th-Century frontier battles (including the one that killed Custer). From above, the hilly, rippling high Plains landscape looks like the rumpled linen of a great big unmade bed. Yellowstone National Park lies 201 miles to the west on Interstate 16; Mount Rushmore lies 280 miles east.

So far, the city is largely free of the artificial sweeteners that have lured so many travelers to showplace cities such as Bozeman and Livingston to the northwest, in Montana. But the boutiques and all the rest may be arriving soon.

A 700-unit housing development is proposed on one end of town. Sam Paul Mavrakis, whose family has owned Ritz Sporting Goods in Sheridan for decades, has collaborated with his wife, Carol, to convert an old dairy barn in neighboring Big Horn into a three-room bed and breakfast operation, the Blue Barn, which opened last month. A coffeehouse opened on Main Street six months ago, and one of the waitresses there has a ring in her nose.

Maybe it’s nothing. The visitors bureau counted a relatively modest 230,000 tourists to the area last year, and on any day, when you walk the streets of Sheridan, the people you see are locally grown Westerners. Men with cowboy hats older than I am. Men and women who use toothpicks after every meal. College students and high school graduates passing their summers as wranglers at the Spear-O-Wigwam Ranch in Sheridan, or Eatons’ Ranch in nearby Wolf, or the 14HF Bar in Saddlestring, or the Paradise Guest Ranch near Buffalo. Homemakers who own rifles. And children who sit, unarmed, in public school classes of a dozen or so students.

The place is Western in a refreshingly uncosmeticized way. And, for the record, no more than 15 minutes after the woman with the daiquiri in the Mint confessed to me her new ambition, an apparent cowboy ambled in and pulled up a stool next to her. When I last saw them, they were still whispering beneath the glassy animal eyes.

Sheridan, named for Civil War Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, was born in 1882 as a grid sketched on a brown paper bag by entrepreneur John D. Loucks. It is the lowest town in the state, geographically speaking. But, Wyoming being Wyoming, it is nevertheless 3,745 feet above sea level. which makes it often hot in summer and cold in winter.

The most popular roads out of town lead to the Bighorn Mountains, which lead to many things: Fishing, for trout, usually, in scores of lakes and rivers in and around Bighorn National Forest. Hunting for birds and game animals, in season. Hiking and horseback riding, most spectacularly near the snowy peaks of the 137,000-acre Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, within the national forest. Snowmobiling and skiing in winter. And the year-round pursuit of wildlife sightings: elk, moose, deer, mountain sheep, bear, fox and coyote.

The most popular roads into town lead to Main Street, which in the space of seven blocks has 16 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. For instance: the 1908 Crescent Hotel, which rises on the former site of the original Bucket of Blood saloon, and the 1882 building at 1 South Main, Sheridan’s oldest building, which once held a general store and now holds a pharmacy.

If you ignore the second-floor “skyway” tunnel that the Best Western Sheridan Center put across Main a few blocks north in the 1970s--a Jetson’s convenience in a Tumbleweeds town--it’s not hard to imagine a wooden boardwalk under foot and horse troughs alongside it. But it’s more educational to investigate the enterprises that Main and neighboring streets still sustain.

At King’s Saddlery and King Rope, cowboys from miles around come to buy tools of the trade. Though now retired at 72, Don King (no, not the boxing promoter) has lived in Sheridan on and off since 1936 and built a reputation as one of the nation’s premier saddle-makers. The walls jangle with spurs, bridles and belt buckles, the scent of leather work hangs in the air, cowbells are sold for use on actual cows, and broad sheets advertise home-grown instruction on barrel-racing and “the three D’s of goat-tying.” Determination, dedication, devotion.

In the back stand stacks of hats and sweat shirts for tourists. In workshops downstairs, leather is sculpted into saddles, and sisal from Africa (among various substances) is heated and twisted into rope. King’s sells about 35,000 lengths of rope yearly, most of it these days including nylon, or polyester or polypropylene. Four King sons fill various roles at the store, and a cavernous building in back holds Don King’s Western Museum.

The museum is free. On the day I walked in, Don King himself, a grizzled fellow in a white hat, was at the counter, surrounded by his massive Western artifact collection, which is dominated by more than 500 saddles.

“I just bought six or seven more last weekend,” he confessed. “Old junkers, but I couldn’t say no. When you get the collecting bug, it’s just like good whiskey: You can’t turn it down.”

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Across the street, next to the Mint, stands Ritz Sporting Goods. Ritz is proof that Sheridan remains unglamorized--its looming yellow and green sign will win no prizes for subtlety--and it may be the only sporting goods store in the nation to open daily at 6 a.m. and feature a counter for coffee drinkers. For several dozen old ranchers, and one boxer dog dozing beneath a display of fishing poles, the Ritz is where one goes each morning to lament the lack of rain or muse on the triumphs of the high school football team.

A few blocks away stands the Sheridan Inn, root of all imported civilization in Sheridan. Less than a year after the railroad came to town in late 1892, the 62-room inn sprung up near the tracks at Fifth Street and Broadway. Its design was based, strangely, on a hunting lodge the architect had visited in Scotland. Buffalo Bill Cody, a part owner and part-time resident for many years, is said to have sat on the inn porch, auditioning acts for his Wild West show. The hotel closed to lodgers in 1965, and is now owned jointly by the city and county, but a restaurant continues in the old bar and tours are offered by the Sheridan Heritage Center (adults: $3).

The grandest old building in town is the house built by rancher John Kendrick from 1908-1913, shortly before he became governor and then a U.S. senator. The mansion, now known as Trail End Historic Site, is another piece of strangely foreign architecture--a three-story Flemish Revival eruption atop a hill over a city park--and its carefully preserved interior shows just how eager some frontiersmen (and women) were to build North America in Europe’s image. There’s Italian marble around the fireplace, stained glass in the bathrooms, and delicately carved oak on the stairwells. Evidently the pines in these hills weren’t good enough for Kendrick.

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While some newcomers to the Plains were importing all these trappings of European civilization, of course, others were busy trying to purge the area of its existing civilization: the native nations of North America. And Sheridan stands in the middle of some of this continent’s most contested territory.

In the space of just a few hours over three days, I stopped at several marked old military sites, and took away a deep impression of the carnage that went on here in the 1860s and 1870s.

* Fort Phil Kearny, now a mostly bare hilltop 20 miles south of Sheridan, was once a 17-acre compound behind eight-foot walls. It was established in July, 1866, in the heart of Sioux and Cheyenne hunting grounds and named for a Civil War hero. The fort lay along the Bozeman Trail, a popular but perilous shortcut to the Oregon Trail. It also served to draw warriors’ attention away from the transcontinental railroad project then passing through to the south. In 1868, after the rail had advanced and hundreds of cavalrymen and Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho and Shoshone had killed each other in various ambushes and skirmishes, the U.S. Army gave up the fort and the Sioux and others burned it. Now a small interpretive center tells that story, displays artifacts and sells books and souvenirs.

* Fetterman Battle Site, about five miles from Fort Phil Kearny, is another largely bare hilltop, and the scene of a cavalry defeat on Dec. 21, 1866. On that day, Capt. William J. Fetterman, who had bragged of being able to defeat the entire Sioux nation with about 80 good soldiers, was out and about with 81 men. He had orders not to stray too far from Fort Phil Kearny, but upon sight of a few Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho--including a young Sioux warrior named Crazy Horse--he violated orders and strayed across Lodge Trail Ridge. The stray warriors were a decoy. More than 2,000 more were waiting, and they quickly killed Fetterman and all of his men. The whole thing apparently took about half an hour. In retrospect, that fiasco offered foreshadowing to the most famous of all battle fiascoes in the area: Custer’s last stand.

* Little Bighorn, Mont. (about 75 miles north of Sheridan on I-90), is the scene everyone has heard something about. The site, a series of ridges and valleys around the Little Bighorn River, had been earmarked for native occupation by the U.S. government in the Treaty of 1868. But then gold was found nearby, and Army officials became restless about Sioux and Cheyenne hunting habits, and in late June, 1876, Army leaders including Lt. Col. George A. Custer resolved to attack. But they vastly underestimated the number and attitude and capability of their enemies; there were thousands of united Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho, not the hundreds that were forecast, and Custer evidently had the mistaken impression that they would scatter and retreat upon attack.

Cheyenne Two Moon, one of the combatants, said later that the defeat of Custer’s unit took “as long as it takes a hungry man to eat his dinner.” In the welter of things that went wrong, Custer and about 225 officers and troopers under his command died in the last major defeat of the campaign, and an industry of Custer speculation and research was spawned.

One reason the event took on such historic resonance was simple timing: The word of Custer’s defeat reached Washington just in time to taint the nation’s celebration of its 100th Independence Day.

The site today includes a well-outfitted visitor center, a stone monument to the dead, and a vast, 360-degree view of grass and prairie hills. (Admission to the monument property is $4 per vehicle, $2 per pedestrian.) A Crow reservation surrounds the site, and a national cemetery holds row upon row of dead from World War I, World War II and the Korean War. Hillside markers also show where Custer and his men fell, and a four-mile driving route allows visitors to follow the chronology of the fighting.

The markers and literature show a fascinating evolution of official attitude, from the old stone marker dedicated to the officers and soldiers killed “while clearing the district . . . of hostile Indians” to the newer marker that cites “our fallen heroes, both Indian and white, who gave their last full measure in defense of their country.” In 1991, after legislation was introduced by U.S. Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), Congress and President George Bush agreed to change the site’s name from Custer Battlefield to Little Bighorn Battlefield.

On the day of my June visit, thunderheads galloped overhead and pelted the landscape with rain and lightning while wind tore at the miles of grass. It was easy enough to picture a terrible event taking place there.

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The stops I made between battle sites were more encouraging. In Buffalo (population 3,500, about 35 miles south of Sheridan), a tourist boomlet has breathed life into the Main Street with a dozen buildings that date to the 1890-1920 era, a few quite lavish-looking galleries, and several bars. The old Occidental Hotel may not be taking guests (though it is open in summer for historic tours), but the Buffalo Bar endures, as does the 21, as does the Century Club. I walked into the Century Club at 8:45 a.m. on a Wednesday, and through the darkness discerned half a dozen devoted local customers, seated in a row at the end of the counter, their eyes narrowing in Old West suspicion as I stepped up to ask the barkeep if I could use the bathroom.

In the high, pine-stubbled town of Story (population 650, about 16 miles south of Sheridan), for instance, I had a surprisingly good Mexican dinner at the Lodore Supper Club. The chef, it turned out, had emigrated from Guadalajara to Wyoming more than a decade before.

At the next table in the Lodore, I found a couple of former Californians who had relocated from Oceanside to Story five months before. The man at the table was a former cop, who with wide eyes told me about the level of security in his new hometown.

“On a winter night,” he said, “this parking lot is full of cars with doors unlocked, keys in the ignitions, engines on and rifles in back. And nothing goes wrong.”

In Big Horn (population 217, about nine miles south of Sheridan), the Bradford Brinton Memorial preserves the ranch and impressive art collection of a wealthy rancher and art patron. There’s also a free Bozeman Trail Museum in the old blacksmith’s shop, and a well-used polo field at the Big Horn Equestrian Center. The polo contests, a weekend ritual each summer, stem from the arrival of Sir Oliver H. Wallop, seventh earl of Portsmouth and grandfather of U.S. Sen. Malcolm Wallop. Sir Oliver ran a ranch, installed a tradition of polo and made a business of exporting ponies to serve Great Britain’s colonial military campaigns.

Between Sheridan and Big Horn, and Sheridan and Story, and Story and Buffalo, are the open spaces, the amber waves of grain, the round hills and trickling creeks, the shadows of massive and fast-moving clouds. Half the fun of being a tourist in this part of Wyoming is finding your way from place to place in that landscape. There really are more cows than people, as the old saying goes, and there are probably more acres than cows. The question is for how long.

“Only a handful of people have known about Sheridan,” said Sam Paul Mavrakis, the new B&B; proprietor. “But now, a lot of people in Jackson (Hole) and Aspen are getting tired of that, and they want to come here.”

GUIDEBOOK

Sheridan or Bust!

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Getting there: Sheridan lies 136 miles southeast of Billings, Mont., and 147 miles east of Cody, Wyo., on Interstate 90. The Sheridan airport is served by commuter affiliates of United and Continental airlines. Fares from Los Angeles, with a connection in Denver, begin around $440 on both carriers.

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Where to stay: In town, the 138-room Best Western Sheridan Center Motor Inn (612 N. Main, Sheridan, Wyo. 82801; telephone 307-674-7421), were I stayed, is centrally located and kid-friendly (indoor swimming pool) if generally uninspiring. Double rooms: $66 nightly. In the countryside, Spahn’s Big Horn Mountain Bed & Breakfast (P.O. Box 579, Big Horn, Wyo. 82833; tel. 307-674-8150) is two cabins and two rooms in a main lodge, all woodsy and 15 miles from Sheridan. Four rooms, each with private bath. Double rooms: $65-$85. Another nearby B&B; is the Blue Barn (P.O. Box 416, Big Horn, Wyo. 82833; tel. 307-672-2381), which opened in May, offering three rooms in a converted 75-year-old dairy barn. Double rooms: $60-$85. There are several dude ranches in the area. For more information: Dude Ranchers’ Assn. (P.O. Box 471, Laporte, Colo. 80535; tel. 303-223-8440).

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Where to eat: Its atmosphere is more cosmopolitan than countrified, but a favorite dinner stop is Ciao Bistro (120 North Main St.; tel. 307-672-2838) with a quasi nouvelle Italian/American menu. Closed Sundays, Mondays and Tuesday nights. Dinner entrees: $11.95 (no credit cards). For a meal in the country, the Lodore Supper Club & Bar in Story (tel. 307-683-2455), half an hour out of Sheridan, mixes Mexican, Italian, steak and seafood. Dinner entrees: $5.95-$19.99. The Sheridan Inn (tel. 307-674-5049) offers lunch daily in its 1893 bar, and dinners Wed.--Sat. Sandwiches and burgers about $6.

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For more information: Sheridan Convention and Visitors Bureau (P.O. Box 7155, Sheridan, Wyo. 82801; tel. 800-453-3650, Ext. 22.) Wyoming Travel Commission, I-25 at College Drive, Dept. WY, Cheyenne, Wyo. 82002; tel. (800) 225-5996.