Main Street, Wyoming; 406; The Sheridan Inn

Main Street Wyoming is made possible in part by grants from Kennicott energy proud to be a part of Wyoming's future in the uranium exploration mining and production industry. And by the Wyoming Council for the Humanities and ridging lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history values and ideas. Many of the tourists and tour guides who visit the Sheraton and experience a lot of interesting situations as they walk through the end they hear creaking floors and doors opening and. A variety of different sights and sounds. As a matter of fact the other day when I took a tour upstairs the buzzer went off and I even called downstairs and asked who was calling me and no one rang the buzzer so the people that were with me were a little frightened and I said well that's OK.

Things happen here. And one of our maintenance personnel here last winner. We have a not a requirement but we often close those doors upstairs to maintain the heat. And he closed them off before he left that evening but when he came back the next day every single door down the hallway was open and not just open a little it was open all the way to the wall. Every single one of them and no one had been up there. When you go up onto the third floor for some reason. As you walk down the servants quarters if you go up the back stairway that one hallway that takes you down to the main part of the third floor. Just creaks all the time and. There's never anyone there. We've taken tourists down there and turned the corner toward room. Tourists have reported that the rocking chair is really rocking. Iraq.

This Kate is just one of several notable people. Who stories live on in the halls of the church. It was built in 1893 at a cost of about $25000. At that time. And since then it's had its share of celebrities. Theodore Roosevelt. Will Rogers Ernest Hemingway they all stayed here. When it opened it was known as the best establishment between Chicago and San Francisco.

It has a number of unique architectural features. Including. 69 Gables. Some of which. You can see behind me. This is a rather unique place Jeff. The way it was constructed if you look around here a guy by the name of Kimball that was hired by the railroad company out of Omaha Nebraska designed this place to withstand hurricane force winds. I don't know I think he knew that we were living in Wyoming but I haven't heard of a hurricane here. And he also designed it to. Float. If we'd ever have a flood. So consequently you've got what they call Georgia pine beams in this place that. Expansive In other words in them a dining room that's 40 feet across with no post you see no post in this building and he designed it in a unique way with rosettes and rods that go completely

through to the roof trusses and it's suspended and consequently all the floors are suspended by those rods and the unique thing about this I am forever amazed is that they built this in less than eight months. That's an amazing feat the way this thing was constructed. They said they had a mild winter and it was completed in May of. 1893 in that grand opening was in June of course they turned the lights on in May which is rather unique to the place at that time it was a first building in the Sheridan area to have electric lights. They were run by a threshing machine engine out back here and they had to turn the lights out at midnight because the threshing machine engine was. Too noisy. So. Apparently they didn't have any union strikes at that time. I think at this place that. You really need t 93 when the gas residents need saddling more. Here. The entire porch was lined with rocking

chairs just like the one that I'm seated in here. And one of the traditions was the residence and guests would come out and they would sit here and enjoy the cool breezes of the Big Horn Mountains. He would come out here to one of his purposes would be to audition for his world. Now the show was actually titled The wild Buffalo Bill's Wild West. And Congress of Rough Riders of the world which was quite a mouthful to say but that was actually the title. Now. The interesting thing about additional was that we always knew that he was in town they would come here for the purpose of the new edition. Now if they were selected by him that meant that they would get three meals a day. It meant that they would have prestige certainly because he chose them. The sound. And the other thing was that they would travel to places that they would never see. If they had

not selected the history of the share news laced with stories of colorful characters in the early days they came with a new railroad they were businessman with interests in the coal fields agriculture livestock there are also sports but it also had a string of colorful owners among them Buffalo Bill Cody who did a little recruiting for his wild west show here when Cody was in town and they found out the surgeon was nice maybe and they would come to north Georgia where it was totally devoid of anything we see here now and they would audition for him and when he would select them obviously they were happy with it. They weren't selected and they were very eager to be employed by him. What they would do is that they would get it on their heart. And they would actually ride into the saloon. And right through the doors and march around on a horse trying to get his attention. Right now we're on the second floor of the historic church in N. And we're standing here right

at the at the steps that are referred to as the servant steps these used to run from the basement of the building all the way up to the third floor. And so the employees of the end would never be seen. They would just come back here and go up and down they would take Lennon's back and forth and also provide room service for the people that were on the other floors. One of the more unfortunate events that occurred at the Sheraton and was on October 27 thousand nine hundred two and occurred in this room directly across from me. And Horton bole who was the son in law of Colonel and Mrs. Cody took his own life in this room. He was a 40 year old man he was married to the code of Cody's eldest daughter Arda. And they had to say. Children of the bowls had two ranches in the Sheridan area and whenever Cody was in town they would come here to the end and they would stay here too. Well for whatever reason that we're really not sure. Mr. BOWLES took his life

on that day. He went downstairs and had a drink with someone and then came up stairs and made the excuse that he had to write some letters and that was about 11 or o'clock in the morning something like that will and he did not return for a while. Someone checked on him about three o'clock in the afternoon. And what they found was that he had taken chloroform and put it in his shoe and held his shoe to his face and he did leave a suicide note and it was addressed to Mr. Howard French who was a very brief manager here at the Sheraton and for the time. And he did apologize in the note and he said I'm sorry Howard to cause this trouble in your hotel. But I would prefer to be among friends at a time like this rather than among strangers It was a very touching note. And he did have a gun in his hand I considered using that but he didn't because it was going to have belonged to his wife and he didn't want to. That or so they did have a very large funeral here and Sharon was the

one of the largest that was ever held. And he is buried in the shirt I mean a supposed cemetery in 1066. The end had a date with the wreckers ball. It was in bad shape. Dr. Kings who lived on a ranch south of here bought it in order to save it. I left and went to. Hawaii because my mother had a cataract operation. My husband called me out there and said they are indeed going to. Tear it down. And I. Said well make an offer on that. And I really had not. Some impulse that. I had not thought through what I was going to do with it. But it seemed to me that you don't. Tear down something that A has of that magnitude that has that kind of history behind it. And that was such a focal point of the community. I've

never been in it. I mean you really have to be kind of crazy. So I came back from the Y and I was a proud possessor. And I got I had to get in and see it. So it was a. It was like putting on a huge play on a daily basis. So often I would go down to market and buy for the shop that. Started the gallery and. Go get the. Paintings for the. Pottery and I tried to get every medium and it was like. Well I almost felt like I could fly I could do anything. And it was a challenge I mean you were in a contemporary gallery in the state of Wyoming even today and you're not swimming upstream you're swimming up against the ocean. That's.

Very difficult. But if somebody said no you can't do that I'd say watch me. And there was something about him. I was there today. You can talk to the people who are there working with us today. There is a kind of feeling. And I kind of attachment that you get for the place. For the people who have been part of it. The stories that come out of it. I chose to pull out of it because I was one exhausted. Had originally just was going to have a whole other little town on the other side had saved the oldest building entered into which is a cabin. Which sat on the other side of the railroad tracks and I was going to have a motel that was where the coke Ford building was. Now. I had delusions of grandeur of things that I could do well. I found that just trying to run the in and out.

Keep my son it was it was 16 hours a day for six days a week and I just got exhausted. And I realized what I really wanted to do was paint. And I wanted my own art career. And I would. Put on these shows at the gallery cried because nobody came to the openings. There would be maybe half a dozen people who would be there and the artist would have come from quite a ways away. And I felt very responsible for them. And I thought Now I. Know what I really want to do is my own and there was an artist friend of mine or a photographer. Who gave me permission I was having lunch with him in the dining room one day and he said no you don't have to do this. I said I don't know. He says no you don't have to run the gallery anymore Lennon wants to realize and have to lie on the gallery I start thinking well I really don't have to run the whole thing.

Try to find somebody to buy it. And the deals fall to the last year. The city in the county have absolutely no dollars in the Sheraton in the Sheridan is operated by. The shared heritage center. And in turn they are overseen by a joint powers board that is made up of folks from the city and the county. There is the lease by them through the shared heritage center for a dollar a year and the Sheraton Heritage Center has the. Task of preservation of maintaining and operating the Sheraton Yes. We have a great responsibility to the people I shared in this is a fantastic building and to be able to restore it we do need some sources of income or be able to maintain it. We initially opened up for tours the first year we did tours and we began to rent out some of the rooms to the local people in terms of having weddings or events here. Then the next step. Is we wanted to have the bar restaurant open for

tourists to come when they came they would be able to get lunch. And it also would be an income producing situation for the end to help us with these tremendous costs there's a lot to do here. We did hope enough the restaurant the saloon for lunch only. Some of the restaurant owners and. Bar owners I think like the other word but they do own a liquor establishment were very concerned they're saying that we're using tax dollars to compete against them and what they mean by that we did get some grant money to repair the roof and also to buy the building. And they feel it's unfair competition. But we are nonprofit. Any money we make goes back into the building the Lisi of course we have an agreement with him and he pays us a percentage of being there and we're all working together. Rejuvenation Richard Land has got some controversy locally particularly over the housing of a commercial enterprise like the restaurant in a pub. What building what do you have. But there's a larger and

more complex question that we have to ask. As we look at an effort like this to keep a historic site vital and that is how do we not just in charity but in Wyoming generally take care of our historic artifacts. This this property is a national historic landmark which is. That which receives the greatest. Distinction by the federal government because it is that it's eligible for lots of different kinds of funding. If it's treated in a an a certain way. For example if it were put into some kind of a museum use it could receive funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Perhaps in the millions of dollars it can receive other grants to help with its restoration if it were done based on a professional plan it can receive tax credits for restoration and so on all of that was. Shuttled aside in favor of fixing it now and putting it into some

kind of local community use. Frankly it's worked out quite well. The building looks great. There is a understand a certain amount of income being generated and perhaps it's going to survive. However there is no intellectual content to it that there is no. Well if you look at the gift shop for example no books are sold. They're depending on the loot and the gifts are very nice. And they're in good taste but they don't have anything to do with the intellectual quality of the M.E.. But they have. That seems to be reflective of a sort of a broader trend that I see and. In Sheridan and in the state of Wyoming. The people that are come to coming to Sheridan these days are those people who are really mainly interested in the

heritage the American heritage the Indian Wars Cowboys Indian tepees all that type of thing are what really interests them. Sherman is very fortunate. We are on the I-90 corridor between the Black Hills are what we refer to as the faces and Yellowstone Park and we're kind of a nice stopping off place between those two areas. And so people do come here. They ask about the carnies the Bradford Britain Memorial and all the things that we have here that reflect our heritage. One of the things we've done in the past is Jordan has become the gateway to Western history. And there is so much of it around our area. And so we're trying to develop that and give the traveling public more information about it. This state park system I. Recently looked at its historic areas and its natural areas and it found that

85 percent of those who came from out of state. From were those who visited the historic properties. And an 85 percent of those who use the natural areas were in St.. So based on that fact its the out of state people who come looking for some insight and some appreciation of the history of the American West which is really hot right now. I mean I don't have to tell you about Dances With Wolves or city slicker or perhaps in the negative sense Unforgiven and so on but. The West is has become a. Much desired destination these days and I think basically it's the fact that people. Aspire to the kind of life that they see for

trade in movies and in. Their in their perception of what the West was like independent free and so on. So I think that's where they're coming here. I think they're coming here to find that and I think the looming travel Commission for example promotes that if you look at the travel literature in this state what you'll see on the cover or brochure is either somebody's water skiing on Lake Yellowstone or a cowboy with that cowboys in one thousand century Come on. He's not the Conway that you see today and people are coming to look for that to find that romanticism to find that that touch with the past. I think when they come to Sheridan in they see it from the outside they see it as wonderful architectural structure but I think when they go in they're likely to be disappointed because we can't because what they're going to what they're going to find there. Is a nice gift shop a very nice restaurant

and a bar and that's it. Can a tourist attraction a commercial enterprise and a historical site actually co-exist at the same place or is one of those three likely to suffer. This is this is my big kick. We started serving lunches in June. And it's just got real well. The local trade I would say I was talking to our manager the caterer here the other day and I would imagine the people that eat it here are 90 percent local trade the other 10 percent are tourists. And when the tourist come in here they say what what a wonderful building and then you say yeah I just about got bulldoze down you know it was saved in the last moments they say oh my golly I can't believe that a town like this would let something like this be bulldozed down for a parking lot. As I mentioned before. A lot of

people have come through and said you know Wyoming has the most historical landmark parking lots in the world. Where are the buildings you know. Well this is one. That we're going to struggle and we're going to say we're trying with everything we've got it. The end is an extraordinary building has. Has a history that has a certain grandeur. It has. History that is alive and is topical. And usable. It can be. It is a building that can function. In the present. When many. And. It's necessary. It's not as nice but is very necessary. We have a history. In this country. We have a history in the east that is very well recognized in the buildings and the Williamsburg Bridge mass and

places like that. And out here. We're still very young and buildings are taken care of and they're torn down. And they don't exist. And when you do that. You take away. A kind of spirit that existed that created this country. And that's a crime. The debate continues over what sort of stewards we are for our historic sites that what goes on in the Porton building up this year and then continues to stay. As long as it does. It brings back memories of the early days. Miss Kate Arnold came here as a young lady at age 80 and she worked herself from a chambermaid clear up to a

top notch managerial position here at the end and something like she was with be in for 65 years. And consequently after they sold the furniture they moved her into a rest home. But her ambition and her wish was to be buried. To return to the end so they assume this is to be buried in the end of course they and I got this true story from our local minister here who oversaw the placement of the urn it is up stairs in their room that they they're pretty sure she occupied for all those years and so she does look over the end to this day. I don't take a chance as Jeff I say. Good morning Kate. Good night. OK. And I haven't been bothered by er one but I think she's on my side and I think she's happy to see it back in operation to her.

Main Street Wyoming is made possible in part by grants from Kennicott energy proud to be a part of Wyoming spirit you're in the uranium exploration mining and production industry. And by the Wyoming Council for the Humanities enriching lives of Wyoming people through the study of Wyoming history values and ideas.