The forty bridges in this thematic study are the best of their types which were still in use on the state and county road systems in Wyoming when the study was completed in 1982. Selected from a statewide survey of all functional vehicular trusses and arches using a specific evaluation criteria and methodology, most represent superlatives of their generic engineering types (i.e. truss configuration and connection types) while typifying bridgebuilding and transportation trends in the state. All were built in the first three decades of the twentieth century (1905-1935). Although bridges were put up during the earlier periods of overland wagon emigration, they had not begun to proliferate in the state of Wyoming until the early twentieth century with the emergence of the automobile as a principal form of transportation. All the listed bridges display a remarkable homogeneity of construction and operational histories. Generally, county-built trusses were contracted through competitive bidding among several Midwestern bridge erectors and built from standardized designs using prefabricated components. After creation of the Wyoming Highway Department in 1917, the role of the counties in truss bridge construction diminished. The later highway department bridges were typically designed from standard plans maintained by the department and built by local contractors from components fabricated in the same Midwestern foundries.

One feature that all steel truss bridges shared was their versatility. Quickly erected, they could also be dismantled and moved if necessary. Many county road bridges in Wyoming had begun service as railroad bridges, sold or given to the counties as obsolete structures. Similarly, early highway bridges which had become unsuitable to handle increasing volumes of traffic were sometimes replaced with new trusses, with the older bridges demoted to places along less traveled roads. After World War II, new trussbuilding was rare in Wyoming. Today trusses have been largely superseded by more sophisticated engineering designs and are seldom erected. The remaining highway and roadway truss bridges are remnants of past technologies, whose numbers are continually dwindling through attrition.

The Big Goose Creek Buffalo Jump is an archaeological site consisting of a drive lane or approach area to the jump-off point, the jump-off point itself, and the stream bed below including a kill area. In 1966 Dr. George Frison, then Wyoming State Archaeologist and head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming, began archaeological test excavations at the site. The investigations which continued in 1970 revealed three levels of occupation and produced buffalo bones, stone butchering materials, and features thought to be boiling pits. Carbon-14 dating indicated the site was used in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century placing it in the Late Prehistoric period. Brass projectile points and iron awls found at the site suggested the area was also used during the Historic or Proto-historic period.

The Big Horn Johnson Street Historic District is comprised of buildings of local historical and architectural significance. The buildings are one and two-story wood frame with false fronts and date from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They are representative of western 'boom town' construction throughout that period. The buildings are spaced unevenly along the main street, reminiscent of efforts to provide a more expansive look to burgeoning communities and to protect against the spread of fire. Big Horn was the first town in Sheridan County and temporarily served as the county seat. It was organized to serve travelers along the Bozeman Trail following the military campaigns of 1876-77 which eliminated Indian control of the area. After being bypassed by the railroad in 1892, Big Horn became an agricultural service community for the Little Goose Valley and thrived as such into the 1930s. Big Horn's main street likely contains the highest concentration of original false front buildings remaining in the state and looks much the same as it did near the turn of the century.

The Big Red Ranch was the headquarters of one of the largest cattle operations in Wyoming. It was a leader in agricultural development in the area beginning with the large open range cattle period, moving to sheep ranching and the development of irrigation projects, and concluding with the sugar beet industry. Big Red is significant as one of the few large corporation ranches able to survive the open range period through adaptive change and growth. Big Red owes its creation to the Pratt & Ferris Cattle Company which arrived in Wyoming in 1880. The ranch house was constructed in 1882. During the open range period it was unusual that any permanent structure would be erected, much less painted. The name ''Big Red'' stems from the fact that large buildings were erected at the site and painted red. Men of state and local significance were associated with the ranch including James H. Pratt, Levi and Joseph Leiter, William ''Billy'' Irvine, Frank Horton, and Willis Spear. No other property is in existence in the area that was associated with so many men of regional importance nor with the entire continuum of ranch and farm development in northern Wyoming.

The forty bridges in this thematic study are the best of their types which were still in use on the state and county road systems in Wyoming when the study was completed in 1982. Selected from a statewide survey of all functional vehicular trusses and arches using a specific evaluation criteria and methodology, most represent superlatives of their generic engineering types (i.e. truss configuration and connection types) while typifying bridgebuilding and transportation trends in the state. All were built in the first three decades of the twentieth century (1905-1935). Although bridges were put up during the earlier periods of overland wagon emigration, they had not begun to proliferate in the state of Wyoming until the early twentieth century with the emergence of the automobile as a principal form of transportation. All the listed bridges display a remarkable homogeneity of construction and operational histories. Generally, county-built trusses were contracted through competitive bidding among several Midwestern bridge erectors and built from standardized designs using prefabricated components. After creation of the Wyoming Highway Department in 1917, the role of the counties in truss bridge construction diminished. The later highway department bridges were typically designed from standard plans maintained by the department and built by local contractors from components fabricated in the same Midwestern foundries.

One feature that all steel truss bridges shared was their versatility. Quickly erected, they could also be dismantled and moved if necessary. Many county road bridges in Wyoming had begun service as railroad bridges, sold or given to the counties as obsolete structures. Similarly, early highway bridges which had become unsuitable to handle increasing volumes of traffic were sometimes replaced with new trusses, with the older bridges demoted to places along less traveled roads. After World War II, new trussbuilding was rare in Wyoming. Today trusses have been largely superseded by more sophisticated engineering designs and are seldom erected. The remaining highway and roadway truss bridges are remnants of past technologies, whose numbers are continually dwindling through attrition.

Clearmont, founded in 1892 by the Burlington Missouri Railroad, is primarily an agricultural community located in the northeast portion of the state of Wyoming. Clearmont was incorporated in 1919. In the same year the developers of an agricultural business, Leiter Company, asked the Clearmont Town Council to authorize construction of a jail. Due to a growing population town officials became concerned about law enforcement. The Town Council funded the construction of the jail in 1922. The Clearmont Jail is a solid steel and concrete structure with walls five and one-half inches thick. The jail was used frequently through the 1950s. It was thought that the jail was an effective deterrent to crime because it did not have any modern facilities. Prisoners were taken to a cafe to eat, and back at the jail they were given a can to serve as a toilet. It was used for the last time in 1961.

The Connor Battlefield site is located in the small community of Ranchester. Originally an Indian campsite, its physical properties represent a well situated level and protected stretch of river bottom. Many large trees occupy the battle site with cottonwoods predominating. Three sides of the site are bordered by the Tongue River which flows in a meandering fashion along the west, north, and east sides of the campsite.

The Battle of the Tongue River, August 29th, 1865 (the site of which has now become known as the Connor Battlefield) represents the single most important engagement of the Powder River Indian Expedition of 1865. The Powder River Indian Expedition was a punitive military campaign conducted during that year to suppress the hostile Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe Indians committing depredations along the emigrant trails on the Northern Plains. Though the Tongue River Fight was a decisive victory for the military, the overall success of the Powder River Expedition was inconclusive. The direction of the general plan of the campaign was the responsibility of Major General Grenville M. Dodge, then in command of the Department of the Missouri. Brigadier General Patrick E. Connor was given command of the field operations.

Except for minor skirmishes with roving war parties Connor's forces made little contact with the hostiles until late August when a band of 500 Arapahoes under Chief Black Bear and old David was discovered on the Tongue River. At 7:30 on the morning of the 29th the attack began led by General Connor. Although the soldiers were outnumbered they managed to rout the Indians. The skirmishing lasted until after dark but Connor had destroyed the Arapahoes' capacity to wage war and had killed over sixty of their number including the son of Chief Black Bear. Seven women and eleven children captives were eventually released. This ended the Battle of Tongue River and for all practical purposes this also marked the end of the Powder River Indian Expedition. Today there are no physical remains of the battle in evidence.

The Dayton Community Hall is located in a residential area on the corner of Bridge Street, Dayton’s original main thoroughfare, and Third Avenue. The lot is 50 feet by 142 feet with a small lawn, and a dirt parking area on the north side. The peeled log structure rests on a one-foot high, poured concrete foundation. The main building is rectangular with a hipped roof. A small rectangular shaped, hipped-roofed appendage is located at the west end of the building and a hipped roof porch is on the east side.

The building, which has been in continuous use since 1936, embodies the tight-knit spirit of community that still exists today. Built as part of the national Works Progress Administration (WPA) relief effort during the Great Depression, the hall still functions as it was originally conceived—“a building for community gatherings.” Just as it has in the past, the hall today hosts weddings, parties, dances, funeral dinners, reunions, and special town meetings.

The Dayton Mercantile represents one of the most important early commercial enterprises in the town of Dayton. From its origins as a small country store in the 1880s, it grew to be one of the largest enterprises in the town and region. The Dayton Mercantile served not only the communities of Dayton and Ranchester, but also northwestern Sheridan County and the surrounding region including southeastern Montana through the network of roads and trails through the area. It served as a gathering place for the people of the area to exchange information, purchase much needed supplies, tend to postal needs, and socialize. Therefore, nearly every family in the region either bought merchandise from or utilized the Dayton Mercantile at some point in the early origins of that portion of Sheridan County. It became one of Dayton's largest and most enduring businesses and has served Dayton and the area from 1882 to the present day in one capacity or another.

The forty bridges in this thematic study are the best of their types which were still in use on the state and county road systems in Wyoming when the study was completed in 1982. Selected from a statewide survey of all functional vehicular trusses and arches using a specific evaluation criteria and methodology, most represent superlatives of their generic engineering types (i.e. truss configuration and connection types) while typifying bridgebuilding and transportation trends in the state. All were built in the first three decades of the twentieth century (1905-1935). Although bridges were put up during the earlier periods of overland wagon emigration, they had not begun to proliferate in the state of Wyoming until the early twentieth century with the emergence of the automobile as a principal form of transportation. All the listed bridges display a remarkable homogeneity of construction and operational histories. Generally, county-built trusses were contracted through competitive bidding among several Midwestern bridge erectors and built from standardized designs using prefabricated components. After creation of the Wyoming Highway Department in 1917, the role of the counties in truss bridge construction diminished. The later highway department bridges were typically designed from standard plans maintained by the department and built by local contractors from components fabricated in the same Midwestern foundries.

One feature that all steel truss bridges shared was their versatility. Quickly erected, they could also be dismantled and moved if necessary. Many county road bridges in Wyoming had begun service as railroad bridges, sold or given to the counties as obsolete structures. Similarly, early highway bridges which had become unsuitable to handle increasing volumes of traffic were sometimes replaced with new trusses, with the older bridges demoted to places along less traveled roads. After World War II, new trussbuilding was rare in Wyoming. Today trusses have been largely superseded by more sophisticated engineering designs and are seldom erected. The remaining highway and roadway truss bridges are remnants of past technologies, whose numbers are continually dwindling through attrition.

On the northwest edge of the city of Sheridan is Fort Mackenzie, a hospital administered by the Veterans Administration. The hospital is situated on approximately 272 acres of land, which is a small parcel compared to the 6, 280 acres that once was the Fort Mackenzie military reservation. Within that acreage are approximately seventy buildings and structures, most of which are arranged in two north-south rows and along a fishhook-shaped avenue. Two-thirds of the buildings within the hospital grounds were constructed in the first decade of the twentieth century when Fort Mackenzie was a military post. These buildings served various functions such as administrative offices, living quarters, hospital wards, warehouses, and maintenance shops. They are constructed of red brick in the colonial style. The rest of the hospital structures, built after 1930 and during the years the post served as a Veterans Hospital are complimentary in style and construction materials to original fort buildings. Fort Mackenzie was converted from a military post to a veterans hospital in the early 1920s.

Fort Mackenzie was named for Ranald Slidel Mackenzie (1840-1889), veteran of the Civil War and the Indian Wars of the West and Southwest. As colonel of the Fourth Cavalry, Mackenzie took part in the Powder River Expedition of 1876. In November of that year, leading a mounted column during General George Crook's winter campaign against High Plains Indians, he surprised and defeated Chief Dull Knife's band of Northern Cheyenne near the edge of the Big Horn Mountains. Fort Mackenzie was established as a military base for the purpose of protection of white settlers in a Rocky Mountain-High Plains region home to Indians belonging to half a dozen different tribes. In September, 1898 Charles F. Manderson, a former senator from Nebraska, and others, informed the War Department of the need for a military post in the Northwest and recommended Sheridan, Wyoming as a site. In October, 1898 General E. V. Sumner, Commander of the Department of the Colorado and the Missouri, was directed by the War Department to investigate and report upon the matter of establishing a military force at Sheridan. In his report Sumner supported Manderson's claims and on December 14, 1898, the Secretary of War approved the report and authorized the expenditure of $12,000 for temporary buildings at Sheridan. Legislation was introduced which called for the establishment of a post near Sheridan and included a $100,000 appropriation. The bill was signed by President McKinley on April 7, 1900. The garrison was at its peak strength with 601 men in 1911. Fort Mackenzie's usefulness as a military post was at an end with the entry of the United States in World War I in 1917. The post was officially abandoned on November 3, 1918.

The fort was transferred from the War Department to the Public Health Service in March 1921. A year later it was transferred from that agency to the Veterans Bureau. In March 1922 President Harding signed a deficiency appropriation bill containing an item of $100,000 for use in converting the post to a hospital, and that spring the first patients began to arrive at Fort Mackenzie Veterans Hospital. When the hospital opened it had a bed capacity of 125 patients. At peak patient load just after World War II, the hospital contained 900 patients and was one of the largest neurophychiatric hospitals in the country. At the time of its nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the hospital had an operating bed capacity of 364, a staff of 505 and a budget of $10,000,000.

The significance of Fort Mackenzie as a historic site derives from both its history and its architecture. Its history relates to two major functions: its function as a military post and as a veterans hospital. From 1898 to 1916 Fort Mackenzie was an army post, but it is not clearly understood what role it played in American military history. That it had an active role in the High Plains Indian Wars is doubtful, since fighting had ceased and Indians were located on reservations two decades before the post was established. Wyoming's congressional delegation tried to establish it as a regimental post, but that effort was likely inspired more by economic and political, rather than military reasons. The existence of the many buildings and structures at Fort Mackenzie affords physical evidence of the impact the fort has had upon the lives of those associated with the facility. The dozens of red-brick colonial style buildings form an impressive complex that is equaled or surpassed only by F. E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne and Fort Yellowstone at Mammoth, as a homogeneous collection of historic federal buildings in the state.

Holy Name Catholic School is one of the oldest Catholic schools in Wyoming, and the oldest Catholic school building in the state. Holy Name has provided education to Catholic and non-Catholic students in Sheridan for almost 100 years, making a significant contribution to education in the community. The 1914 school building is one of the oldest remaining school buildings in the state, and the second oldest school building in the state still being used as a school. It represents a trend in early 20th century grade school design which combined elements of the Prairie and Craftsman styles with the more common Classical Revival to give the school a welcoming and homelike appearance appropriate for young children. The 1952 addition was typical of the many school buildings constructed in Wyoming after World War II, with its hint of the International style in horizontal emphasis, flat roof, minimal ornamentation and bands of large windows.

The forty bridges in this thematic study are the best of their types which were still in use on the state and county road systems in Wyoming when the study was completed in 1982. Selected from a statewide survey of all functional vehicular trusses and arches using a specific evaluation criteria and methodology, most represent superlatives of their generic engineering types (i.e. truss configuration and connection types) while typifying bridgebuilding and transportation trends in the state. All were built in the first three decades of the twentieth century (1905-1935). Although bridges were put up during the earlier periods of overland wagon emigration, they had not begun to proliferate in the state of Wyoming until the early twentieth century with the emergence of the automobile as a principal form of transportation. All the listed bridges display a remarkable homogeneity of construction and operational histories. Generally, county-built trusses were contracted through competitive bidding among several Midwestern bridge erectors and built from standardized designs using prefabricated components. After creation of the Wyoming Highway Department in 1917, the role of the counties in truss bridge construction diminished. The later highway department bridges were typically designed from standard plans maintained by the department and built by local contractors from components fabricated in the same Midwestern foundries.

One feature that all steel truss bridges shared was their versatility. Quickly erected, they could also be dismantled and moved if necessary. Many county road bridges in Wyoming had begun service as railroad bridges, sold or given to the counties as obsolete structures. Similarly, early highway bridges which had become unsuitable to handle increasing volumes of traffic were sometimes replaced with new trusses, with the older bridges demoted to places along less traveled roads. After World War II, new trussbuilding was rare in Wyoming. Today trusses have been largely superseded by more sophisticated engineering designs and are seldom erected. The remaining highway and roadway truss bridges are remnants of past technologies, whose numbers are continually dwindling through attrition.

Mount View (the Brooks-Yonkee House) was built in 1911-1912 for Lyman Herbert Brooks, a prominent Sheridan businessman and politician. It was designed by architect Glenn Charles McAlister of Billings, Montana and represents the Prairie School style of architecture. West of the main house is the carriage house in which the Brooks family lived during construction of their home, and later was used for the Brooks' horses and carriages.

Mount View is significant for its association with Lyman Brooks. Brooks pursued a variety of commercial interests including cattle ranching, hardware, lumber, banking, and real estate. He was also active in civic and social endeavors and served in the Wyoming State House of Representatives and on the Board of Trustees for the University of Wyoming. He was among a small group of entrepreneurs who helped shape the early economic growth of the city of Sheridan. The house is also significant as an outstanding example of Prairie School architecture and as a work of a master architect, Glenn McAlister. McAlister designed a number of important buildings in Montana and Wyoming.

The Odd Fellows Hall was built in 1894. The building is significant for its original false-fronted style of architecture typical of architecture used in early western boom towns. The practice masked the gabled ends on frame buildings and provided a true street facade. It demonstrated an attempt to provide urban scale to the small town. The fact that Big Horn became a town with two-story buildings shows the transition from self-sufficient homesteads scattered throughout the area to town life, a commerce center, in the late nineteenth century. Even though Sheridan became the county seat and Big Horn did not continue to grow in size, it has continued to be a center for a variety of community activities in the Little Goose Creek Valley. The Odd Fellows Hall figured continually in these community activities. The Odd Fellows, whose membership numbered around 30 men, and subsequently the Rebekahs, whose membership numbered around 40 women, brought men and women together for monthly meetings on the second floor of the building.

The headquarters of the Quarter Circle A Ranch was established in the early 1890s along the banks of Little Goose Creek by William Moncreiffe, a wealthy scion of a Scottish aristocratic family. William, along with his brother, Malcolm Moncreiffe, engaged in livestock ranching and a number of businesses concerned with the development of the northern region of the new state of Wyoming. They backed sawmill and retail lumber enterprises, purchased cavalry and draft horses for later sale to the British Empire's War Office for use during the Boer War in South Africa, and raised and trained polo horses. The ranch buildings included a spacious, two story frame house, bunkhouse, icehouse, springhouse, barn, stables, sheds, and corrals.

In 1923 Mr. Bradford Brinton purchased the Quarter Circle A Ranch from William Moncreiffe. Mr. Brinton easily fitted into the ranching society that had developed around the town of Big Horn. He raised thoroughbred horses, participated in State and civic affairs, and was especially interested in fish culture and the preservation of game. Brinton died in 1936. The Bradford Brinton Memorial was established by his sister, Helen Brinton.

The Robinson-Smith House was built in 1909 and is a remarkably well preserved example of an American Foursquare house. The American Foursquare form was popular from the mid-1890s to the 1930s and was a reaction to the ornate elements of the Victorian period. It was designed by locally renowned architect Glenn C. McAlister. Other notable properties designed by McAlister include the Sheridan County Courthouse, Mount View, and Trail End. The house was the home of William N. Robinson, his sister Rebecca, and her husband Atley Smith. William Robinson was an early pioneer and rancher in Sheridan County and was one of Sheridan County’s first County Commissioners serving three terms in office.

Schunk Lodge is a complex of privately owned buildings on the Bighorn National Forest, in northern Wyoming. This complex is distributed over approximately one acre and includes seven buildings. The buildings are all log construction and fit in well with the surroundings. The main cabin appears to have been built under a Forest Service permit which allowed grazing, operation of a dude ranch, and as a stage stop on a mail route. Records indicate that the permit was converted to a recreation residence in 1924. The main cabin was begun in 1910 and the other six buildings were built between 1933 and the early 1940s. The more recent buildings are: an icehouse, a bathhouse, a powerhouse, a bunkhouse, a saddle barn, and an outhouse. Another bunkhouse was removed in 1985 at the request of the Forest Service. All buildings have been maintained to preserve their historic integrity.

The Schunk Lodge is significant at the local level under National Register criteria A and C. The site is eligible under criterion A in the area of conservation due to its association with historic events: management of public lands (permitted uses like ranching, commerce, and recreation residence), development of transportation systems, and association with the regional conservation movement. The Schunk Lodge hosted many politicians, government officials, prominent organizations, and personalities in the regional and national conservation movement of our national forests and water usage. From 1933 and well into the 1960s the lodge was Dr. Will Schunk’s mountain headquarters for conservation and wilderness preservation efforts hosting nationally renowned conservationists and politicians. It was the perfect retreat for family reunions, dignitaries visiting Wyoming, artists, philanthropic organizations, Boy Scouts, and assorted Sheridan College events. Additionally, in its very early years it had a commercial role in the stage and mail route crossing the Big Horn Mountains.

The Schunk Lodge complex is also eligible under criterion C for the log construction of its various buildings. This complex of buildings is representative of the rustic architecture which is typical of the Mountain West. The various building’s construction and uniqueness are well preserved examples representative of mountain home log construction.

The Sheridan County Courthouse was constructed in 1904-1905 with elements of two architectural styles, Neo-Classical Revival and Beaux Arts. Architecturally, the Courthouse is one of the most imposing courthouses in Wyoming and one of the most monumental government buildings in the state, outside of the Capital City of Cheyenne. The Courthouse exemplified the trend in Wyoming, at the turn of the century, toward construction of stately government buildings that were impressive and authoritative in character. Built during a boom period in Northern Wyoming's history, the Courthouse symbolizes the determination of the people of Sheridan County to achieve an element of permanence. Located on the southwest corner of the courthouse complex, the sheriff's office-jail was constructed in 1913. The jail affirmed that the citizens of Sheridan County would remain a continuing, positive force in the history of Wyoming and became an integral part of the Courthouse Square.

The Sheridan County Fairgrounds Historic District is part of the 40 acre fairgrounds tract. The district consists of the 1923 brick Exhibit Hall, three circa 1939 Works Progress Administration (WPA) constructed sandstone buildings, a 1930s frame barn, and the 1950 frame horse stalls. A dedicated fairgrounds was constructed in the county by the late 1880s, then moved to its current site in 1906. The Sheridan Wyo Rodeo began in 1931 and it, along with the county fair, became two of the most anticipated annual events for county residents. The Sheridan County Fairgrounds Historic District serves as a vital link to the county’s agricultural and western roots. Three of the buildings were constructed by the WPA. The iconic pavilion is an excellent example of the stone work that was associated with WPA and New Deal construction.