History of Buffalo, Wyoming
In 1879, the Bighorn Mountain region was still largely unsettled country. The U. S. Government’s construction of Fort McKinney at the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon to protect travelers along the nearby Bozeman trail was still underway. A number of civilians had acquired contracts to provide forage for the military livestock. They needed a place to camp and Clear Creek’s banks were the perfect place.
The new “town” was just off the post premises and soldiers needed a place to spend their paychecks. Before long, tradesmen and merchants started up beer halls, saloons and places to get food. While the little settlement gained prominence along the trail, the location was already well known by Indian Tribes, early day white explorers and travelers.
The little town began to spring up quickly, but a real boost came when a trading post six miles south of town was relocated to the Clear Creek spot. Counties were soon organized in Wyoming territory. It became obvious that the site would become the county seat—and therefore would need a name.
One evening at the Occidental Hotel, one of early day Buffalo’s oldest remaining buildings, the owner held a meeting and made a suggestion. “Those present,” he said, “should write a name on a slip of paper to be deposited in a hat, and the one withdrawn will be the town’s official name.”
The winning name was submitted by a man named Will Hart, who hailed from Buffalo, New York and had written the name “Buffalo” on his slip. The town’s name has never been changed and, despite some accounts to the contrary, the name was not chosen because of the buffalo herds that constantly roamed the area.
There are few towns in Wyoming whose main thoroughfare reflects history more than Buffalo's Main Street. In 1878, six years before Buffalo actually became a town, a local merchant decided he wasn't getting his share of the traffic coming into the rapidly growing settlement and asked a friend to bring in a bull team and change the dirt path slightly to go by his store. The curve remains to this day.
On Main Street is the famed Occidental Hotel. In the summer of 1879, a party of men on the Bozeman Trail stopped for lunch on the banks of Clear Creek. One of the men, Charles E. Buell cooked a meal for his companions. He liked the area along the stream and pitched his tent there. He was hardly settled in when a group of miners stopped by and asked to board with him for a few days. One of the men asked Buell if there was something that would serve as a bank where their mined gold could be store. Buell led the miner to the back of his tent, pulled off a buffalo robe and revealed a hole in the ground. The gold was deposited therein and the robe was put back in place. The hole is remembered in legend as Buffalo's first bank.
Whether it was this incident which prompted Buell to consider erecting a hotel is not certain, but it is known that he soon replaced his tent with a more permanent structure. In a short time this hostelry became the stage stop for the new Rock Creek and Junction stage. The building, which also housed Buffalo's first post office, was constructed of logs hauled down from the mountains. The Occidental soon became the center of activity, the stopping off place for new arrivals and for public meetings and social gatherings.
When Johnson County was formed in 1881, the new hotel was the site of the newly appointed commissioners. The preserved hotel registers ring with celebrity showing the names of Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody), Theodore Roosevelt, Generals Sheridan and Cook, and even Calamity Jane. However, the Occidental is probably best known for playing host to the well-known author, Owen Wister. Wister is said to have placed the climactic shoot-out scene from his famous western novel, The Virginian in front of the hotel. Wister spent a great deal of time at the Occidental when he came to Buffalo.
Courtesy of travel-to-wyoming.com.