Buffalo

Buffalo, the county seat of Johnson County in northeastern Wyoming, began in 1878 as an army town adjacent to Fort McKinney (1877-1894). Since that foundation was laid, Buffalo has been witness to gold prospectors and settlers as a waypoint along the Bozeman Trail, nearby battles during the ensuing Indian Wars, and the Cattle War of 1892. Those events and their associated hard times helped forge the town's unique heritage and culture and made its place in American history significant. It was recently referred to as "an epicenter of Western frontier history" by local museum educator Bob Edwards. Buffalo's site, at the boundary between the Big Horn Mountains and the Northern High Plains, is not only historic but particularly beautiful, and it also provides superb grasslands for cattle and sheep ranching. Those industries, plus mining, lumbering, and tourism, make up the community's present-day economy.

Gil Bollinger is a volunteer at Buffalo's nationally accredited Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum. He has published several nonfiction books on Wyoming history with the museum's press. Their coauthorship of this book is a natural development of that long-term association. All of the photographs shown herein are from local sources. In addition to the museum's superb collections, there are images from collections at the Johnson County Library, the Buffalo Bulletin newspaper, and the Occidental Hotel and Museum.