Buffalo, Wyoming: The Johnson County War Town

Buffalo, Wyoming was the epicenter of the Johnson County War of eighteen ninety-two, when a hired army of Texas gunmen, backed by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and tolerated by the state government, invaded Johnson County to assassinate small ranchers and homesteaders they accused of cattle rustling. Local citizens and the county sheriff organized a defense and had the invaders pinned down at the TA Ranch when President Benjamin Harrison ordered the Army to intervene, effectively saving the hired gunmen from being killed by the local population they came to eliminate. The Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum, housed in a Carnegie library building dating to nineteen oh nine, holds the most comprehensive collection of Johnson County War artifacts in existence. Gatchell was a Buffalo pharmacist who spent decades collecting weapons, photographs, and documents from the participants themselves.