Wyoming, Buffalo - Wednesday, July 11, 2018 - Tour of the Town

Yesterday we moved west into Wyoming.

The weather is good now.  Yesterday it was in the 90’s, today it was in the 70’s.

The large amount of snow fence we saw on our way over here is indication that the weather is not always this good.

On our way to Buffalo, we stopped for fuel in Gillette.  This statue was standing at the I-90 intersection.

We will be staying four nights at Deer Park Campground.  I originally thought we were only going to stay for one night so I didn’t research what was around in this area.  After a quick look at our brochures we found that there are quite a few interesting things to do.  I didn’t get any good pictures of the Big Horn Mountains yet, you can see their snow topped peaks from the campground.

Our site is one of the nicest in the park.  The others look nice also, we just have a little more room.

The first interesting thing we found out was that the author of the Longmire books, Craig Johnson, lives just outside of Buffalo in Ucross (population 19).  The town of Durant, WY in the books and the Longmire TV series is based on the town of Buffalo.

Today a tour of the town was our destination.  We stopped first at the Chamber of Commerce to get some information on the town and on exploring the Big Horn Mountains.  The courthouse is just across the street.  It was built in 1884 and is one of the oldest structures still standing in Wyoming.

The Busy Bee Café is mentioned in nearly every TV episode and is Walt Longmire’s stomping ground in the books.  The café is tied to the Occidental Hotel which is another historic building.

The Occidental Hotel was built in 1879.  It was the only first class hotel in northern Wyoming at the time.  Some of its famous visitors include President Teddy Roosevelt and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  The picture gallery included a lot more famous names.

The hotel lobby has been restored to its original beauty.

The Occidental Hotel Saloon was founded in 1880.

I don’t know any of the history of the back bar, but it is beautiful.  I wouldn’t be surprised if it was original.

Clear Creek runs across the center of town.  There was a machine where you could purchase fish food next to where we were viewing the creek.  We decided that as fast as this creek was running, the fish would have to be awfully strong to be able to stick around to eat any of the food.

I purchased the first of the Longmire series today at Longmire Headquarters.  Craig Johnson’s wife rang up my purchase.

The town is getting ready for Longmire Days which is in early August.  Most of the cast from the TV show come in to mingle with the townspeople and several others.  The town expands from about 4500 people to over 12,000 during that time.  Needless to say, Longmire has been good for Buffalo.  The whole town is just picture perfect.

These are some of the mural walls on the town square.

The town square is named Crazy Woman Square after the Crazy Woman Canyon which we will explore tomorrow.  As far as I can tell, no one knows the origin of the “crazy woman” name.

Statue on the square honoring the Basque settlers who came to the area and brought their sheepherding knowledge.  Many of their Basque descendants are still in the Johnson County area.

Another shot of Clear Creek from the other side of the road.  The water in this creek has got to be ice cold.  The mountains around here still have snow on top.

Here we are in our two hour time limit parking spot.  We asked the lady at the Chamber of Commerce where we should park since we would be in town for a while.  She said we were fine, the only time she can remember anyone getting a ticket in town was when someone tried to make a u-turn on Main Street and caused an accident.

We ate lunch at the Sagebrush at the suggestion of the lady at the Chamber.  What a great suggestion.  They have homemade soups and bread.  We both had fresh mushroom soup and half a sandwich on the herbed dill bread.

The Sagebrush is a gift shop at the front with a small café at the back.

We visited the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum.  They wouldn’t allow photos so I was kind of bummed.  Jim Gatchell owned a drug store in Buffalo in the early 1900’s.  The Indians considered him a “medicine man” and Jim became a personal friend of many of them.  Those friendships led to him receiving many unique Indian artifacts which are on display in the museum.

Our last stop was Reece and Ray’s IGA, the only grocery store in town.

We headed home to binge watch Longmire so we could get caught up with the locals.