Sheridan Turned 21 Years Old in May of 1903

Every young person looks forward to coming-of-age, or turning 21. Apparently so did the city of Sheridan. John Loucks first envisioned the town of Sheridan in 1882. He named the new town for General Philip Sheridan, who Loucks served under in the civil war. In 1884 the town became officially incorporated.

On May 11, 1903, Sheridan held their 21 Anniversary celebration.

In this report on the celebration, from the May 21, 1903 Sheridan Post, Edward Gillette and Herbert A. Coffeen talked of Sheridan’s Past and looked into the future.

It is interesting to see what they envisioned for the newly incorporated town, and how right some of the predictions were on that 11th day of May, 120 years ago.

GOOD ADDRESSES Dealing with the Past, Present and Future of Sheridan, Delivered AT THE 21st ANNIVERSARY……E. Gillette Tells of the Coming of the Railroad, and Herbert Coffeen Pictures Sheridan’s Future.

The Coming of the Railroad. – In the winter of 1886 a survey party for the B. & M. railroad started work at Broken Bow, Nebraska, and located a line westward. The country through the sand hills of Nebraska was wild, game being plentiful. I remember seeing in one small valley a herd of elk, deer and antelope at one time.

The members of the party looked forward to locating in some part of northwestern Nebraska where a large town would soon be started, and thought the promised land was in sight on reaching the Box Butte country, where a few sod shanties had been erected. Here a number of quarter sections of land were purchased or tiled upon, and the boys figured that as soon as the survey work was completed, they would go back and farm the lands secured.

The survey was extended to Deadwood, in the Black Hills, and later we took up the line at the old T. O. T. ranch, where Edgemont now stands, and pushed the line up Stockade Beaver creek and on northwest to the Belle Fourche River, thence up Donkey Creek and down Wild Horse creek to Powder River. The water was bad all along this line and we all looked forward to the time when we would approach the distant Big Horn mountains sufficiently near to get a drink of clear, pure cold water from some mountain stream.

Clear creek was finally reached, and an air of contentment and better health was evidenced at once by the men and livestock in the party. However, it was not until the line was pushed over the hill west of Prairie Dog creek and the neat little town of Sheridan was discovered nestling in the valley below at the junction of the Big and Little Goose Creeks that the new Eldorado had been found.

All thought of going back to the Box Butte table was at once abandoned, and claims could be had there at a discount. In the fall of 189O the party camped at the buildings on Big Goose creek known as the Holdrege ranch which gave us the best quarters, all around, that we had had for years.

A large Canada Goose was discovered circling over Big Goose Creek, and when he finally settled in a secluded bend of the stream, a gun was procured and the game bagged. The cook prepared a dinner and people from the town were invited to celebrate the affair with us, (which they did) much to the pleasure apparently of all concerned. We searched diligently for more geese to repeat the occasion, but had to rely on B.& M. turkey (ham and bacon) for subsequent feasts.

The new town of Sheridan was composed of as pleasant a class of people to meet as could be found anywhere in the country. Harmony and a united effort for the good of the town was shown everywhere. The boys were in clover and the work on the survey while camped here was like a continual holiday. We organized a whist club, composed of the Postmaster W. D. Wrighter, C.H. Grinnell, H.C. Alger and myself. The young people then, as now, were always ready for a dance. John D. Helvey joined the party while we were here and performed excellent work while the survey lasted, and has continued to do so.

A good many of us became interested in the town and promised to come back and live here, for we knew that no bettor people or country existed and we are glad to had the good fortune to join this community.

Gillette later settled in Sheridan and married Hallie Coffeen, daughter of Henry Asa Coffeen, in 1893. They lived on Coffeen Avenue, and Gillette died in 1936 at age 81, and is buried in the Sheridan cemetery.

Gillette’s story continues.

After the line was located, the contract was let and the road graded. For a time Gillette was the terminus of the road, but this was too tough a trip and town for the people of Sheridan to stand long, and finally on the 28th of November, 1892, the first train arrived, and Sheridan was connected with the outside world by a railroad.

Like an oasis in the desert, Sheridan is very attractive, as is shown by the fact that everyone who leaves here is glad to get back.

The engines on the road even are glad to return for a task of good water, as the alkali east of us makes them very sick. Since the coming of the railroad, Sheridan advanced steadily in all particulars, until at the present time, probably more business is done here than in any other town of the state. She is just in her infancy, but having gotten a good, sturdy start will continue to grow more rapidly, until the town of Sheridan will be known widely as is the state of Wyoming. – E. Gillette.

While Mr. Gillette talked about Sheridan’s past, Herbert A. Coffeen, Henry Coffeen’s son, was most interested the future of the new town.

The Future of Sheridan

Some one has said that “fate has in store for men exactly what they are preparing for themselves” and if this be true, we are now reaping exactly what was prepared for us twenty-one years ago today. Much credit must be given to the pioneers who could then see the possibilities for a town at the forks of the Goose creeks when little or nothing was known of the resources at hand, save the vast cattle industry. The future of Sheridan is indeed promising, and it is with much satisfaction that we have to-night listened to the tale of that little piece of brown paper, the starting point of the coming city of Wyoming.

Who can say what will be accomplished in another twenty-one years? We who are here in Sheridan at this time can have more to say than any one else, and we can build for the grand future that will surely be ours if we so decide. Many have called us “the Denver of the northwest.” We are not yet a Denver, but we can be if we choose to be, and can have a population of a hundred thousand within the next twenty-one years if we take advantage of the resources now known to be about us on every hand, awaiting development.

Mr. Coffeen seems to have been over optimistic about Sheridan’s becoming the ‘Denver of the northeast.’ In 1900, the population was a little over 1500, and in the 2020 census the population was around 19,000, not quite 100,000 but climbing.

Coffeen continues: Our vast range interests will in all probability be as great then as now. Our farm lands, that to some seem to have reached a limit, can be doubled, yes tripled and quadrupled in extent by the building of reservoirs. For the benefit of any who think our entire water supply is now utilized, I might illustrate it best by the remarks of one our townsmen who recently returned from a visit to his old home in Colorado. He said, “When I left Colorado they did not have any more land under irrigation than we now have, and they had every drop of water in the streams appropriated. Now they have live times as much under irrigation, all reclaimed by the building of reservoirs, and they save every drop of water and use it. Why, don’t you know,” said he, “when I was down there they were roping the big cakes of ice and dragging them out on the land for fear some of the water would get away.”

We have as much water and as many available sites for reservoirs as Colorado, and we must invite people and capital to come and assist in their development. Did these men, who founded Sheridan twenty-one years ago, realize that under every part of the town-site was to be found valuable coal deposits? How many of the residents of Sheridan today are thinking about what will eventually be done with the seven veins of coal, aggregating eighty feet in thickness, which is known to be beneath us? Will not this industry alone, which is us yet in its infancy, prove to be one that will give us an enormous growth and support a very large population as soon as capitalists can be shown that it is here? Within a few months, it has been stated, a second mine will be opened and developed by parties who, we are told, do things on a, large scale.

These deposits will likely attract other railroads, and it is not reasonable to think that the four or five great railroad systems headed in this direction will always keep their terminals in the little Dakota towns, that are on the map simply because they are the end of the line.

Along the foothills of the mountains we find deposits of building stone and marble of excellent quality, gypsum, limestone, potters’ clay, fire clay, lithographic stone: and further back, gold, silver and copper, which will in time be brought to the notice of those who know how to profit by them and turn the raw material into a manufactured product.

As Coffeen foresaw, coal was been a big part of the Sheridan economy for many years. However, the building stone, gold and silver were never in enough quantity to interest investors. Briefly investors in Bald Mountain City did mine gold, but the quality wasn’t there.

He did however, envision another type of gold. Tourism.

We must invite people. A practical way to do so is to take advantage of the beauties of the mountains to attract the summer tourist. The tourists, we are told, bring more money into Colorado than all of her mines and agriculture combined, and she is the greatest mining state in the Union and not the least in agriculture.

Our mountains are superior for camping and the establishment of summer resorts to any other mountain range so close to the east by direct railroad connection.

Let the people of the east know of the wonderful canyons, the pine-clad hills and the rugged snow-capped peaks, and give them half a chance to be taken care of and they will soon be attracted by the trainload. The hot nights of the corn belt will not be tolerated by them when they learn of the cool and restful nights in the Big Horn mountains. Big Goose canyon, the nearest one to town, is now being surveyed, platted and laid out with drives, trails and other improvements, and is to be known as Absoraka park, named after the Indian tribe near at hand.

Plans are now being drawn for a hotel or clubhouse, of quaint style of architecture, sixty by eighty feet. This will accommodate a goodly number of people when completed, but we need a hundred such places to accommodate tourists. The tourists will come: some of them will locate, and they will assist the people in developing many of our resources and in the up-building of the city.

First, let us convince ourselves, then we will get the people. We have in Sheridan an organization called the Commercial Club. A large number of the business men are members. Everyone should be. Every citizen with the welfare of Sheridan at heart should join it. Your influence is needed, as well as the little fees that are collected. The purpose of this Club is the up-building of Sheridan and Northern Wyoming.

We are trying to attract people, we want industries, great and small, and we want to make a beautiful city of Sheridan. This club has already accomplished much that in of benefit to Sheridan in the very few months it has been in existence. There area number of people, permanently located in Sheridan today, who would not have known of Sheridan were it not for the efforts of this club. It has secured, through a meeting of the members of the last legislature, who were called to meet here last January, an appropriation for a state hospital, to be built this year.

It is believed that from its efforts a Carnegie Library will be built. It is taking interest in the proposed courthouse, the proposed federal building, the improvements at Fort Mackenzie, Prof. Dipp’s band, and a very active interest in trying to solve the problem, of a better school building. It is likely that an electric road will be built from Sheridan to Buffalo, and from Sheridan to the canyon.

The Commercial Cub has aimed high and will not alter its course, but for the greatest measure of success combined effort is essential, and the names of everyone here tonight that care for and believe in the future of Sheridan should be added to its roster. Let us all from this day forward make a determined effort to hasten the growth and development of Sheridan. – Herbert A. Coffeen.

Coffeen’s prediction about the tourism industry certainly came true. Tourism attracts many visitors and contributes a great deal of money to the Sheridan economy each year. Including mountain scenery; the Sheridan WYO Rodeo; fishing; camping; hiking; history and dude ranching. Even in the winter there is skiing, ice fishing, and the winter rodeo.

Today, we can thank the visionaries that worked to make Sheridan the thriving community it is today, even though it didn’t quite grow to the size that Coffeen first envisioned in 1903.