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Buffalo, Wyoming: The Occidental Hotel, the TA Ranch, and the Bighorn Front

Buffalo is the small Wyoming town where Owen Wister drank at the Occidental, the Johnson County War climaxed, and the Bighorn Mountains rise out the back door. Two days well spent.

By Wyoming Trading Post Editors Updated October 13, 2026
The Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, Wyoming, a long two-storey red brick building with a row of shopfront awnings along a wide, quiet main street under a partly clouded sky.
The Occidental Hotel on Main Street in Buffalo. Owen Wister was among its guests, and the saloon inside still has its original back bar and the bullet holes in the ceiling. , Photo by Paul Hermans via Wikimedia Commons, 2014. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Buffalo sits at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains in Johnson County, Wyoming, and counted 4,415 people in the 2020 census. It grew up from 1879 beside Fort McKinney, the Army post on Clear Creek just west of town. The Occidental Hotel opened in 1880 to serve cattle drovers, traders, and Army officers passing through. The town was well established by the time the Johnson County War climaxed at the TA Ranch south of town in April 1892.

What makes Buffalo worth visiting: it is small enough to walk in 20 minutes, the historic buildings are genuinely intact, the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum won a 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service, the country’s highest honor for a museum, and the Bighorn Mountains rise out the western edge of town. A working visitor can do Buffalo properly in two days and walk away with a stronger sense of late-19th-century Wyoming than they would get in a week of guidebook tourism elsewhere.

What to do

The Occidental Hotel

The town landmark and the practical heart of any Buffalo visit. Founded in 1880, rebuilt in brick between 1903 and 1908, faded from the 1930s, and was run down by the 1980s; it was bought in 1997 and restored over the following decade. The hotel includes restored rooms and suites, the Occidental Saloon, the Virginian Restaurant, the Busy Bee Cafe, and a small museum.

The saloon is the substantive draw. The back bar is original, and so are the bullet holes. The hotel says Owen Wister spent hours in the saloon watching the cowboys, cattlemen and lawmen he later wrote into The Virginian.

Stop in for one drink in the early evening before dinner. Stay overnight if you can; the historic rooms are worth the experience.

The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum

One block off Main Street. Its collection covers the Johnson County War, including the invaders’ group photograph and images of the go-devil, along with Fort McKinney, the Bozeman Trail and Plains Indian wars, and Buffalo’s frontier history. The core is the collection of Jim Gatchell, the Buffalo pharmacist who gathered local history for almost 50 years.

Admission is $10 for adults, less for seniors, veterans and youth (2026). Summer hours run longer than winter’s weekday-only schedule, and the museum closes every February. Two hours minimum. If you have any interest in Western history, this is the museum that punches far above its small-town weight.

The TA Ranch

South of Buffalo on Crazy Woman Creek. The site of the climactic three-day siege of the Johnson County War in April 1892. The ranch is a National Historic Landmark, still a working cattle operation, and a guest ranch.

Check the TA Ranch website for current tours and stays. For visitors deeply interested in the Johnson County War, an overnight stay at the ranch is about as historically immersive as Wyoming gets.

Bighorn Mountains via US-16 and Crazy Woman Canyon

US-16 west of Buffalo is the Cloud Peak Skyway. It climbs from about 4,600 ft at Buffalo to 9,666 ft at Powder River Pass, with access to Cloud Peak Wilderness trailheads along the way, then drops through Tensleep Canyon to the town of Ten Sleep, about 64 miles and an hour and a half from Buffalo. Allow 4-6 hours round trip for the scenic drive with stops.

Crazy Woman Canyon is a separate, rougher side trip: a narrow gravel road that leaves US-16 and winds down a boulder-strewn canyon to WY-196, about 12 miles south of Buffalo. It is not for trailers.

For multi-day horseback trips into the Cloud Peak Wilderness, West Ten Sleep Lake, reached from the west side of Powder River Pass, is one of the most popular trailheads.

A high alpine lake in the Cloud Peak Wilderness of the Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming, with granite peaks reflected in still water and scattered alpine fir.
Cloud Peak Wilderness, above the treeline. US-16 climbs from about 4,600 feet at Buffalo to 9,666 feet at Powder River Pass, and the wilderness lies north of the highway in country like this. Photo via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA.

Hole-in-the-Wall (longer day trip)

Hole-in-the-Wall is remote canyon country in southern Johnson County, southwest of Kaycee, where Butch Cassidy’s gang sheltered between robberies in the 1890s and where Nate Champion ranched before 1892. An 1883 Hole-in-the-Wall cabin associated with the gang now stands at Old Trail Town in Cody. Access to the canyon crosses a mix of public and private land on rough roads, so ask locally before you go. A full-day commitment, high clearance or four-wheel drive needed, worth it for visitors specifically interested in outlaw-era history.

Fort McKinney and the Wagon Box Fight site

The Fort McKinney site (the Army post Buffalo grew up beside) is on the west edge of town. The fort closed in 1894, and since 1903 the grounds have been the Veterans’ Home of Wyoming. The Wagon Box Fight site (one of the more dramatic 1867 engagements of Red Cloud’s War) is near Story, about 20 miles north, part of the Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site. The Jim Gatchell Museum staff are the right people to ask about either.

Where to eat

Buffalo’s food scene is small but solid.

The Virginian Restaurant at the Occidental Hotel. The town’s destination dining. Steaks, prime rib, bison. Reservations.

The Occidental Saloon for casual food at the bar.

Bozeman Trail Steakhouse on East Hart Street. Classic Wyoming steakhouse, bison steaks and big portions.

The Busy Bee Cafe, part of the Occidental, for breakfast.

Where to stay

The Occidental Hotel. As above. The reason most people come, open again since its restoration began in 1997. Book ahead in summer.

Chain motels near the interstate interchanges for a cheaper night.

TA Ranch for visitors specifically interested in the Johnson County War history.

Camping: Bighorn National Forest campgrounds along US-16 west of Buffalo, around Tie Hack Reservoir and higher up, are 30-60 minutes into the mountains.

When to visit

Summer (June-August): all attractions open, longer museum hours, Bighorn access at peak.

Fall (September-October): ideal weather, cottonwoods turn gold along Clear Creek, lodging cheaper, museums still open. The strongest window for thoughtful visitors.

Winter (November-March): quiet, cold, mountain access limited to the plowed highway and snow sports, but the Occidental is open and the museum keeps weekday hours (closed in February). Good for budget visitors who do not need wilderness access.

Spring (April-May): unpredictable; mud season for the mountains. Lower prices.

What’s around Buffalo

  • Sheridan, WY (about 40 minutes north): the larger sister town (about 18,700 people to Buffalo’s 4,400), with more dining and lodging, King’s Saddlery, and the WYO Rodeo in July. Buffalo stays smaller and more historically focused, and it sits closer to the south-side Cloud Peak Wilderness trailheads; most visitors pick one as a base and day-trip to the other.
  • Story, WY (about 25 minutes north): a small foothills town beside the Wagon Box Fight site.
  • Big Horn, WY (north, near Sheridan): the Brinton Museum.
  • Casper, WY (about 1 hour 45 minutes south): Wyoming’s oil and energy town, less historic but practical for I-25 travelers.
  • The Bighorn Mountains as covered above.

Why Buffalo matters

Buffalo punches above its weight historically because of geographic accident. The town grew up beside Fort McKinney, the Army post that watched the Powder River country after the Plains wars, became the heart of small-rancher resistance in the cattle-baron era of the 1880s-90s and the scene of the 1892 Johnson County War, gave Owen Wister material for The Virginian, and is the gateway to one of Wyoming’s most accessible wilderness areas.

Almost all of this history is still legible in the town. The Occidental still operates. The TA Ranch still stands. The Jim Gatchell Museum holds the documents. The Bighorn Mountains still rise out the western edge.

For a visitor who wants the densest concentration of Wyoming history in the smallest physical area, Buffalo is the right destination. For a visitor who wants Western lodging that is genuinely historic and not a theme-park reproduction, the Occidental is the right hotel. For anyone interested in the actual events that shaped late-19th-century Wyoming and the American West, the Jim Gatchell Museum is the right resource.

Two days here is enough. Three is better. Pair with Sheridan (about 40 minutes north) for a substantial four- to five-day Bighorn-area trip.

Gear for Buffalo and the Bighorn Front

Two abandoned white frame barns with sagging roofs standing in tall grass behind a wire fence, cottonwoods grown up close around them.
Abandoned barns near Fort Phil Kearny, north of Buffalo. The fort held the Bozeman Trail through Red Cloud's War from 1866 to 1868, and the state historic site there takes in both the Fetterman Fight and Wagon Box Fight grounds. What stands on that country now is mostly ranch buildings like these, left where the work stopped. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress (LCCN 2017685693). Public domain.
Open rolling grassland and sagebrush running back to low bluffs under a wide pale sky, with no buildings, fences or roads in the frame.
The remote plains of Johnson County. Army columns and the Plains tribes fought across this country through the 1860s and 1870s, and the cattle barons and the small ranchers fought over the grass on it in 1892. Buffalo sits at the western edge of it, where the plains run up into the Bighorn foothills. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress (LCCN 2017884700). Public domain.

Further reading

  • Helena Huntington Smith, The War on Powder River (McGraw-Hill, 1966).
  • John W. Davis, Wyoming Range War: The Infamous Invasion of Johnson County (Oklahoma, 2010).
  • Owen Wister, The Virginian (1902).
  • Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum publications and archives.

Sources

  1. Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, plan your visit (admission and hours)
  2. IMLS, 2023 National Medal for Museum and Library Service winners (Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum)
  3. The Occidental Hotel, history (founded 1880; run down by the 1980s; bought and restored from 1997)
  4. Cowboy State Daily, For 143 Years, Buffalo's Occidental Hotel (1879 tents, 1880 log building, Wister)
  5. WyoHistory.org, Fort McKinney (closed 1894; Veterans' Home since 1903)
  6. WYDOT, Big Horn Mountain Country Scenic Byways brochure (Cloud Peak Skyway; Crazy Woman Canyon road)
  7. TA Ranch, official site
  8. Bighorn National Forest, Buffalo Ranger District