Sheridan Wyoming History & Facts

Sheridan is a city in the U.S. state of Wyoming and the county seat of Sheridan County. The city is located halfway between Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore by U.S. Route 14 and 16. It is the principal city of the Sheridan, Wyoming, Micropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Sheridan County. The 2010 census put the city's population at 17,444 and the Sheridan, Wyoming, Micropolitan Statistical Area at 29,116, making it the 421st-most populous micropolitan area in the United States.

The city was named after General Philip Sheridan, Union cavalry leader in the American Civil War. Several battles between US Cavalry and the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Shoshone, and Crow Indian tribes occurred in the area in the 1860s and 1870s before the town was built.

In 1878, trapper George Mandel built a cabin on Big Goose Creek, reconstructed today in the Whitney Commons park near the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library. Jack Dow surveyed the townsite for Sheridan in 1882, at the behest of John Loucks, first mayor of the town who had served under Gen. Sheridan.

In the early 1880s, the nearby town of Big Horn was larger in population. In 1888, Sheridan County split off of Johnson County, and voters chose Sheridan as the county seat in a run-off election. The arrival of the Burlington and Missouri Railroad in 1892 boosted Sheridan's economic status, leading to the construction of the Sheridan Inn, where Buffalo Bill Cody was once a financial partner. Railroad maintenance facilities and railroad-tie treatment plants were significant employers in Sheridan's first decades. The railroad created numerous side industries as well as export opportunities for raw materials. Maps of the day show Sheridan as part of the "hinterland" providing raw goods to cities like Chicago. For the next twenty years the economy and population boomed.

Numerous coal mines funded by Chicago investors opened along Tongue River north of Sheridan in the 1890s, sparking immigration, and a major building boom that built Sheridan's brick downtown district. By 1910, an electric streetcar line, one of the only in the state, connected the mining towns of Monarch, Dietz, and Acme to Sheridan.

Sheridan was initially settled by farmers from midwestern states like Illinois, and a few people who came up the cattle trails from Texas, like John B. Kendrick, who went on to be a cattle tycoon and Governor of Wyoming. Many immigrants from Poland, Italy, Greece, Germany, Mexico, and Japan settled in Sheridan, finding work in coal mines, railroad, or agriculture. One notable Muslim immigrant was Zarif Khan, a charismatic Afghani tamale and hamburger vendor from what is now Pakistan whose neighborly generosity is still remembered in Sheridan. Many Polish families came from the Jaworzynka village in southern Poland.

Sheridan is located at 44°47′48″N 106°57′32″W (44.796720, −106.958970).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.95 square miles (28.36 km2), of which 10.93 square miles (28.31 km2) is land and 0.02 square miles (0.05 km2) is water.

Famous Peoples From Sheridan Wyoming

John Howard Pyle

(March 25, 1906 – November 29, 1987) was an American broadcaster who served as the ninth governor of the U.S. state of Arizona from 1951 to 1955. He was a Republican. As an opponent of polygamy, he authorized a raid on a Mormon compound. He served as an official in the Eisenhower administration.

Pyle graduated from Arizona State University in 1930 and was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity. He was a program director for a radio station and served as a war correspondent during World War II. He was the first Governor of Arizona who was born in the 20th century.

Born in 1906 in Sheridan, Wyoming, Pyle was the first governor of Arizona to be born in the 20th century and was the Program Director of KFAD (now KTAR) Radio in Phoenix from 1930 to 1951. He also served as a war correspondent during World War II and covered the surrender ceremony of the Japanese. Pyle defeated pioneering female politician Ana Frohmiller in his 1950 campaign for governor. He served as Governor of Arizona from 1951 to 1955.

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