Snapshots from Longmire Days
Since reading “The Cold Dish,” the first Longmire novel, I’ve sung the praises of consummate storyteller author Craig Johnson. His flawed characters, clever dialogue, and the sense of place his writing evokes are terrific. He captures Wyoming’s rugged landscapes, challenging seasons and dramatic storms that occur in the Bighorn Mountains and Powder River region he calls home. For three Julys beginning a decade ago, I’ve headed west to Buffalo WY for the town’s annual Longmire Days celebration. When not on an annual Penguin book tour, Longmire Mystery series author Craig Johnson lives with his wife Judy and writes on a ranch in UCross, WY (pop. 25), just up Hwy 16 between Buffalo and Sheridan. Johnson’s twentieth Sheriff Walt Longmire novel, First Frost, went on sale in time for this year’s July 18-21, 2024 Longmire Days.
The Longmire novels are set in the fictional town of Durant (much like Buffalo) in Absaroka County—“the smallest county of the state with the smallest population (where there are more cattle than people).” Fans of the “Longmire” TV series travel to Buffalo from around the country and beyond to interact with the author and TV cast at events organized by the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce.
The 4-day event opens with a down home parade along Main Street with horse drawn floats and antique classic cars carrying the author and actors from the “Longmire” Netflix series. Each year, we attended an autograph session with author Craig Johnson and actors—Robert Taylor (Walt Longmire: the laconic and introspective long-time sheriff of Absaroka County); A. Martinez (Jacob Nighthorse: local businessman building a casino on the Cheyenne reservation); Zahn McClarnon (Mathias, chief of the Cheyenne reservation’s tribal police); Adam Bartley (the Ferg: awkward, but hard-working young deputy), Louanne Stephens (Ruby: the dispatcher and manager of the sheriff’s office).
We visited with fans waiting in line to have books, hats, tee shirts, event programs and posters signed by the actors. I’d brought a splendid boomerang, now signed by them all. Robert Taylor (Sheriff Walt Longmire to the core) is Australian and actually knows how to throw a boomerang. When I handed it to him and explained the Australian name origins of Breakfast Creek, our first home in Missouri, and second home Boomerang Creek, he rubbed it pensively, stood and walked around the table toward me. Standing at an imposing six-foot-two, ruggedly handsome, and looking as if he were born in the saddle (or the Australian outback), I feared he was about to launch my boomerang then and there. After signing my boomerang, Taylor autograph our copy of Johnson’s 2017 mystery, Dry Bones. “To Cathy, my boomerang won’t come back. Regards, R. J. Taylor.”
We lunched at the downtown Busy Bee Café (1927) and on Friday evening were in the stands for the Cowboys vs. Indians charity softball game in Prosinski Park. Hot dogs and Rainier beer (Sheriff Longmire’s favorite) fit the bill. One evening while enjoying a libation in the Occidental Hotel’s saloon, actor A. Martinez (Jacob Nighthorse) stopped for 20-minutes conversation about his complex role as the sheriff’s nemesis in the Longmire series. After dining at the hotel’s Virginian Restaurant we joined the dancing underway outside on Main Street. We danced amidst the locals, fans, and actors, and before the evening was over, I’d gotten a hug and kiss from the sheriff himself. Boy howdy!
At the center of Buffalo’s history is the historic Occidental Hotel and Saloon. Lore has it that in the summer of 1879, a group of travelers following the Bozeman Trail stopped for lunch along a stream that later became known as Clear Creek. Charles Buell, one of the travelers, cooked up a meal in the tent he’d pitched nearby. Then a couple of hungry miners showed up and asked if they could board with him for a few days and store the gold they’d found in the Bighorns. A business connection was forged, and Buffalo’s first hotel, restaurant and bank were born.
Founded in 1880, the Occidental Hotel continues to offer “Western hospitality at its Best.” Over that past 137 years, many famous people of the Old West have visited it. Author Owen Wister wrote “The Virginian” while staying at the Occidental. Buffalo Bill Cody, Teddy Roosevelt, and Calamity Jane were all guests there. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rode to the Occidental from their Hole-in-the-Wall hideaway nearby.
But by the 1980s, the once elegant hotel had become dilapidated and was nearly demolished. In 1997, Dawn Dawson purchased the building and began a ten-year process of historic restoration. Ultimately it was placed on the National Historic Register. In July 2017, my sister Kim and I visited the Occidental’s Hotel and Saloon. While there, we were invited upstairs to explore the hotel’s private library and museum.
It’s filled with bookcases, century-old wall maps, animal bones, dinosaur fossils, vintage “National Geographics,” a library reading table, chess set, and a sofa President Herbert Hoover sat on after trout fishing in nearby Clear Creek in 1932. When fishing lures in his vest pocket ripped the sofa’s elegant floral upholstery, the unrepaired tear became part of the Occidental’s historical lore.
Before leaving town, we shared stories with friends in the Occidental Saloon with enthusiastic toasts and rounds of Rainier beer and Wyoming Whiskey. Boy Howdy! Longmire Days is not to be missed.