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Architectural Map to Sheridan, Wyo.
AAA Home and Away Mountain West Magazine July/August 2004Seabring Davis
This is one Old West town that should not be missed on the way to more popular attractions.
Stand on the covered porch of the historic Trail End mansion and you can see the story of Sheridan, Wyo., unfurl itself. One-hundred-year-old poplar trees frame views of the Big Horn Mountains to the east and the still viable railroad that skirts the town to the west. To the north and south, vistas of mineral-rich and agriculturally prime lands still ground the community here. Surrounded by Plains Indian battlegrounds and cavalry forts, the "bloody Bozeman Trail," tales of fortunes made and lost, pioneers and cowboys, Sheridan is a storybook western town.
The Trail End Historic Center, a gracefully restored 1913 Flemish Revival style home that upholds cattleman John Benjamin Kendrick’s life as an influential member of this city’s heritage, is only the beginning of Sheridan’s rich past. Although Kendrick started as a poor Texas rancher, he ultimately did well in the cattle market and later became Wyoming’s governor and a US. senator. He retired to the 13.000-square-foot family home in Sheridan. From laundry room to ballroom. it has all the modern conveniences and luxuries of the era. Intricately carved mahogany beams throughout the house were machine-tooled, and an intercom system connected all four stories. Kendrick was a progressive in spite of his love of abundance.
"Kendrick’s is a classic rags-to-riches Western story," said historic site superintendent, Cynde Georgen.
Throughout the mansion, the walls and furnishings retell this tale. Georgen has helped meticulously preserve and collect original furnishings from the Kendrick family and outlying sources to restore the unusual American Gothic mansion. The house is a private mile-stone in our country’s history, when the West was a land of opportunity.
Located in the north central part of the state at the base of the Big Horn Mountains, Sheridan’s main attraction today is its historic downtown. With more than 35 buildings listed on the National Historic Register, the architecture here is a map to a boom-and-bust economy that included great prosperity and an economic depression. But the diversity of the buildings and the friendliness of the townspeople are what make it such an enchanting place to visit.
Head Downtown
A walk down the hill from the Trail End leads to the city park, where summer symphony concerts bring music lovers out once a week to enjoy picnics and ice cream. Two blocks north is Main Street, where baskets of flowers hang from wrought iron light posts, and boutiques and curio shops beckon you to browse. The 10 blocks of Main Street are the canvas for the city’s historic walking tour, which includes buildings constructed from 1883 to 1925. The most intriguing are the still-operating WYO Theater, where you can see entertainment as varied as a Garth Brooks concert to Laser Vaudeville in an art deco setting, and the 1905 Sheridan County Courthouse, which is still in use. Just as it did in Sheridan’s 1920s heyday, the town is still serviced by a trolley car. The restored trolley traverses the city from May through September. making stops at historic points of interest, hotels and restaurants.
A jaunt off Main Street leads to the historic Sheridan Inn on Broadway, near the railroad tracks. Though the hotel is now defunct, Wyoming’s Rib and Chop House restaurant occupies the first floor. Enjoy a meal along with the splendor of the ornately carved bar former owner Buffalo Bill Cody had shipped from England as a centerpiece for the room.
The Northern Pacific Railroad’s freight trains run past the inn’s front lawn, just as the Burlington Northern Railroad did in the 19th century It’s not difficult to imagine Cody greeting train passengers debarking from the depot across the street for an overnight stay at the Sheridan Inn. Attracted by land, coal and cattle, many people came to stay here while their homes were being built.
Clash of Cultures
In the 1860s, before Sheridan became a town, settlers flocked to the area via the Bozeman Trail to carve out a piece of land in accordance with the Homestead Act. As a result, Sheridan became the center of some of the most well-known and gruesome fights between white homesteaders and the Plains Indians.
Just 20 miles south of Sheridan, Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site reaches further back into a part of Western history that is often forgotten. Constructed in 1886, the purpose of the fort was to protect travelers on the Bozeman Trail, prevent intertribal warfare between American Indians and to draw Indian attention away from the westward expansion of the trans-continental railroad. Within the park, two battlefields are commemorated with interpretive trails of the Fetterman fight and the Wagon Box fight. They offer unsettling insight into the violence that once took place here.
Other intriguing historic sites require longer daytrips outside of Sheridan, such as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where Gen. George Custer and 12 companies of the U.S Cavalry were defeated by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors; the Medicine Wheel, near Lovell, Wyo., where an unusual archaeological site was constructed by prehistoric American Indians on a mountain top; and the windswept Pryor Mountains National Wild Horse Refuge! Range near Lovell, where protected wild mustangs roam.
Worth the Stop
Local travel brochures bill Sheridan as being "perfectly located between Yellowstone National Park and the Black Hills of South Dakota." And it is. Yet for this reason, it is often overlooked as visitors zoom by on Interstate 90 en route to more famous attractions. Sheridan is a town that clings to its historic roots and Western identity. If you take the time to pull off the main thoroughfare, you might want to stay awhile.
