SCLT Program Features Preservation Easements

The March Explore History Program held at the Tongue River Valley Community Center in Dayton, on Tuesday, March 25, featured SCLT History Program Manager Kevin Knapp talking about the land trust’s historic preservation easements of the Historic Sheridan Inn and the Huson Homestead outside of Clearmont.

First, he talked about the difference between an historic conservation easement as opposed to listing something on the National Registry of Historic places. They are two different processes. He explained what the National Registry of Historic places does.

He added this about the Historic Conservation Easement. Places.

Easements can be donated by landowners or purchased by easement holding entities. Sometimes there can also be tax benefits for the landowner if the property is also listed on the National Registry of Historic

He talked about the history of the Sheridan Inn, which was designed by Thomas Rogers Kimball, an architect out of Omaha, Nebraska.

It was also the first building in Sheridan to have electricity, provided by a discarded threshing machine engine that was used as a dynamo to power the lights.

Buffalo Bill Bar in the Historic Sheridan Inn

Knapp talked about the old Doc Huson house near Clearmont. E.W. Huson was born in Boston, NY, a town southeast of Buffalo, NY. In 1832 At age 10 he appreciated to learn medicine and pharmaceuticals. When his family moved West, people began calling him Doc. He married Clarissa Pattengell and the couple had sixteen children. They homesteaded on Crazy Woman Creek outside of Buffalo, Wyoming. Huson lived there in a dugout, and moved back and forth to Buffalo, where he bought and sold land to make money.

Knapp told about the family when they lived on Crazy Woman and traded with the Indians that hunted buffalo in the area, and knew an old timer named Arapaho Brown.

The other men rode on, leaving the wounded man and his horse in Doc’s care.

When he healed up, he paid the Doc several hundred dollars for their help, and he told the family he was Bob Dalton, a plumb, no good train robber and outlaw, and advised the boys not to follow in his footsteps, but to “Get what you get honest. Honest.”

Doc lived in Buffalo for several years and was successful there. He moved down to the Clearmont area in 1891. He knew the railroad would pass close by, and platted out the town of Huson.

Huson grew very quickly, with eighteen businesses, including a Chinese laundry, a saloon with a pool table and a hotel with rates of $1.50 a day. There was even a town newspaper, “The Northern Wyoming Stinger”.

In 1889 Doc built the stone house that still stands today, three miles west of Clearmont. For a time, the house was also the stagecoach stop. Clarissa was the cook and served meals for the passengers.

Huson, as a town, was short lived. Due to the unrest of the Johnson County War in Buffalo, the railroad took a sharp turn and went up Lone Tree Draw instead of across it. In 1892, Clearmont was born, and most of Huson, including Doc and his family, moved there. Doc opened a general store on the north end of Clearmont.

The old rock house has been through several owners since Doc Huson, and in 2015, thanks to previous landowners Mark and Kim Tenneson, the house and 500 acres is now a part of the Sheridan Community Land Trust conservation and historical preservation easement to protect the land, the homestead, and the rich history that comes with it.

For the Huson family, conservation is special. “The homestead and ranch land will remain as we know it for future generations,” said Lois Hall, Doc’s granddaughter.

The next SCLT Explore History will feature George Ostrom, who is credited with creating the iconic bucking horse and rider symbol that has come to represent Wyoming. The program will be on April 8 at the Hub and again on April 15 at the TRVCC.

SCLT Explore History programs are free to attend and open to all.