Sheridan Inn Opens 128 Years Ago

Built by the Sheridan Land Company and funded in part by the Burlington Missouri Railroad in 1892, the Sheridan Inn opened in the spring of 1893. Since that day the Sheridan Inn has played an important role in Sheridan, especially for visitors to the area.

An article in the May 10, 1894 Sheridan Post reads, “Col.W.F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) and Mr. Sherman Cantfield have become interested financially with Mr. Geo. Canfield in the Sheridan Inn, and they are making extensive preparations for the summer tourist trade. Sherman Cantfield will be manager of the Inn, while Mr. Boals, in the interest of Col. Cody, and Mr. Geo. Canfield will take care of the tourists on their visits to the mountain resorts.

“Mountain hotels will be erected in the Tongue River, Big and Little Goose canyons, and at Dome lake, where tourists can be cared for without carrying along a camping outfit. The season promises to be an unusually lively one in that respect as many others, but these gentlemen will be found equal to any emergency.”

The Inn cost about $25,000 when it was first built. With inflation, that is approximately $733,664.84 today. However, according to current building prices, building even a small scale hotel can cost between $750K up to one million.. Most cost considerable more. The Sheridan Inn is not a small scale hotel. It has three stories and when it was built there were 62 sleeping rooms; as well as a saloon and billiards room, a large dining room and kitchen.

In the saloon visitors continued to be awed by the famous cherry wood mirrored bar, given to Buffalo Bill by Queen Victoria and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean.

At the time it the Inn was built, it was heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and has its own system of water works and sewerage. All very luxuriant for the era.

Another article in the Sheridan Enterprise March 18, 1893, it says,

Exclusive Passenger Trains:A letter received by Mr, Alger from Upton from Captain Palmer, of Omaha, states positively that the Burlington will begin a regular passenger service from Edgemont, SD, to Sheridan on the first of May.

The time will be reduced for the distance to seven and one-half hours, so that passengers will be enabled to take breakfast in Edgemont and enjoy dinner at the best hotel in the west the Sheridan Inn.

When these travelers came to Sheridan what a better introduction to the area than to see a fine hotel the minute they stepped off the train.

In an advertisement in the Sheridan, Wyoming, Semi Weekly Enterprise August 14, 1908,

Not only a hotel, the Sheridan Inn was the social center of the area, bringing together area ranchers, townspeople, and rail passengers.

Dances were held in the ballroom, as in this article from the June 22, 1893 Sheridan Post.

Invitations are out for a grand formal opening dance at the Sheridan Inn tomorrow evening. Mr. and Mrs. Canfield are earning a deserved reputation for hospitality that is excelled by none in the west. We predict that the affair will be a grand success and the crowning event of the season.

In another article from the June 3, 1893 Enterprise, The dance at the Sheridan Inn on Wednesday evening was one of the most enjoyable features of the week’s festivities! Previous to the terpsichorean pleasures the McKinney band gave a delightful concert, which won merited applause from hundreds of people. (In Greek and Roman mythology, Terpsichore was one of the nine muses, those graceful sister-goddesses who presided over learning and the arts. Terpsichore was the patron of dance and choral song (and later lyric poetry), and in artistic representations she is often shown dancing and holding a lyre. Her name, which earned an enduring place in English through the adjective “terpsichorean,” literally means “dance-enjoying,” from terpsis, meaning “enjoyment,”

Buffalo Bill was much a part of the Sheridan Inn since it was build, and it has been said that Buffalo Bill Cody auditioned acts for his Wild West Show on the Inn’s large wrap around porch.

Several Sheridan cowboys toured with the Wild West Show. Paul Case, Sheridan boy, toured with Buffalo Bill’s show for three years, returning home in November of 1909. He toured Europe and the United States with the show, but he was perfectly content to return home.

On April 9, 1896, George V. Birch, accepted the position of chief of cowboy with the show. He was accompanied by Bob Wilkerson, Si Compton, Ed Goodrich, Ed Hughes, George Johnson. Jack Venoy, Gil Hudsonfiller, all well known Sheridan county cow punchers. The cowboys left on the noon train today to join the show, according to the Sheridan Daily Journal.

After a long history of different owners, the Sheridan Inn is now designated as a National Historic Landmark and a Historic Hotel of America. On October 25th, 2013, Bob and Dana Townsend became the newest owners of the Historic Sheridan Inn. Townsends consider the Sheridan, Wyoming area an important part of their family heritage. Bob’s grandfather, Herman Madron, moved to Clearmont, Wyoming in 1934. Bob’s mother and her siblings grew up around Sheridan. Their family brand is A/X, which they still own.

Today, it is still a fine hotel, with 22 inviting rooms decorated very much in the period of the old west, and named after such western icons and Buffalo Bill, William Pickett, Sitting Bull, Teddy Roosevelt, and Wild Bill Hickock.

It even has a ghost. Miss Kate Arnold, who worked at the Inn for 64 years. In 1909 she moved into the Inn and lived there until 1965, and she only moved out when she was told the Inn was to be torn down. Luckily, it wasn’t. Miss Kate had a small flower garden, where she picked flowers for the Inn’s tables.

When she died in 1968, it was her request that her ashes be left at the Inn. Somewhere, in the walls between the rooms, her ashes reside. No one knows exactly where. However, her presence is often felt and her spirit is sometimes seen by the people who work there. She is, however, a friendly spirit, and guards the Inn to this day.

The Miss Kate room is on the third floor, and features two queen-sized beds and faces north towards the railroad.