Sheridan, Wyoming, United States
My plan upon leaving Cody was to head east across the
Bighorn Mountains to Sheridan on U.S. 14 with short stops at Bighorn Canyon and
the Medicine Wheel, the latter being a circle of stones in a wheel shape high
in the mountains created by Native Americans, the most famous of its kind in
North America and a sight I have not yet been to. However, as we left the town
of Lovell I noticed a flashing sign stating the road was closed 20 miles
ahead. The road closure was due to a
large wildfire in the northern Bighorns just west of Sheridan. While it would
have been possible to make it to those two sights, it was not possible to cross
all the way to Sheridan where I had a motel reservation for the night. This necessitated heading south to Worland
and crossing the Bighorn range to Buffalo, a detour that added over 100 miles
and nearly two hours to our route. I decided to skip the sights so as to cross
the mountains before it got dark. The
Medicine Wheel will have to wait for another time.
Sheridan is one of Wyoming’s nicer small cities, situated on
the plains not far from the base of the Bighorns.
What keeps it from becoming a
more popular place to live is probably the lack of a nearby ski area. Otherwise, it could well become another
Bozeman or Jackson. Sheridan’s Main
Street is lined with historic old buildings and shopfronts, including a Mint
Bar and famous Saddlery. It is also lined with numerous works of public art, many
nice statues that I did not notice on my previous stops in the town in 2009 and
2019. Downtown Sheridan is what an western town should look like.
My primary interest in stopping in Sheridan was the Brinton
Museum, a private family collection of western art and artifacts located on the
ground of a historic ranch, the Quarter Circle A Ranch. Although parts of the collection
used to be displayed in the ranch house, the museum was built in 2015, well
after I lived in Cheyenne in the late 1990s, so this was a new sight for me.
The museum is very modern and built into a hillside, supposedly very
ecologically friendly. There are numerous paintings and sculptures by quite
famous names in western art such as Remington, Catlin, Sharp, and Gollings, as
well as Native American regalia on display.
There’s also a nice restaurant with what should be a beautiful view of
the Bighorns. Unfortunately, the view
wasn’t so beautiful because of the smoke in the air from the fire. Normally the ranch house can be toured as
well, but they informed us it was closed and everything inside moved to
underground vaults in the museum should the fire head in the direction of the
ranch. Oh well, maybe next time!
2025-05-22