On this #TBT, we highlight Sheridan County’s historic community service stagecoach routes. The information comes from a sign created by the Sheridan County Historic Preservation Commission and placed On Beaver Creek Road (Sheridan County 87), between Big Horn and the junction with Wyoming 331.
During the 1880s, as Sheridan County was settled and railroads steadily advanced through Wyoming, stagecoach operations changed from long distance interstate service between railheads to a network of shorter routes connecting rail terminals and isolated communities. The county road you are now on was surveyed between Buffalo and the Montana line in September 1882. It was known as the Buffalo-Montana Road. This county road bypassed Sheridan and was used by local stage lines to connect several outlying communities in Sheridan County.
The Buffalo-Montana Road followed the route of the military cutoff of the Bozeman Trail established between Fort Phil Kearny and Fort C.F. Smith in 1867. The modern county road closely follows the 1882 route except the earlier road came from Big Horn through the gap in the Beaver Creek hills to the east rather than around the hills as the modern road does. From here it crossed Beaver Creek over a bridge and continued northwest to Beckton, Dayton, and Ohlman.
