There are places that hold history the way a good cast-iron skillet holds heat — steadily, deeply, and with something to show for it. The Sheridan Inn is exactly that kind of place. Sitting at the corner of Broadway Street and Fifth Avenue, just a short walk from downtown Sheridan, this magnificent Queen Anne-style building has been anchoring Wyoming’s cultural landscape since 1893, and the moment you step inside, you understand why it refuses to be forgotten.
Built by the Burlington and Missouri Railroad and designed to rival the finest hotels of the American West, the Sheridan Inn was once called the finest hotel between Chicago and San Francisco. That is not idle boasting. With 69 dormers crowning its sweeping roofline — each one unique — the building has a silhouette so distinctive it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964. Buffalo Bill Cody himself used the wide front porch as an audition stage, sitting there to scout performers for his Wild West Show. You can almost feel the echoes of spurred boots and canvas-and-sawdust ambition in the afternoon light.
Today the inn operates as a museum and event venue, open for tours during the warmer months, and the experience is genuinely transporting. Guided tours move through rooms filled with period furnishings, original photographs, and lovingly curated artifacts that tell the story not just of a hotel, but of an entire era of Western expansion. The main barroom, with its long carved bar and pressed-tin ceiling, is the kind of room that makes you want to slow down and actually look at things. The detail work throughout the building is extraordinary — hand-crafted woodwork, original hardwood floors, and windows that frame the Bighorn Mountains like paintings hung by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.
What keeps the Sheridan Inn from feeling like a dusty relic is the genuine passion of the people who care for it. The nonprofit Friends of the Sheridan Inn have poured years of effort into thoughtful restoration, and it shows in every preserved corner. Special events, private dinners, and seasonal programming bring the old walls back to life throughout the year, and the annual holiday events draw locals and visitors alike for an evening that feels genuinely magical.
Plan to arrive with time to spare. Spend a few minutes on that famous front porch before your tour, watching the Bighorn Mountains rise to the west, and think about how many thousands of travelers have done exactly the same thing over the past 130 years. The Sheridan Inn does not rush you — it invites you to settle in, look around, and let Wyoming’s story wash over you at its own unhurried pace.
Admission is modest, the staff is warm and knowledgeable, and the gift shop has genuinely good books on Western history. Whether you are a first-time visitor to Sheridan or a returning regular who somehow has not made it through those front doors yet, the Sheridan Inn is one of those rare experiences that earns every superlative it has ever been given.
