On Saturday, September 10, 2016, I participated in the 63rd annual meeting of the Wyoming State Historical Society in Buffalo, Wyoming. This friendly city of about 5,000 people, provided a grand welcome to the attendees at the meeting. As this Wyoming state historical sign in the center of the town proclaims, any direction from Buffalo is Powder River Country.
The town did not exist when the US Army erected Fort Phil Kearny sixteen miles north in 1866 and precipitated Red Cloud’s War. As a result of the conflict between the Native Americans and the White settlers bound for the Montana gold fields, the Fetterman Massacre occurred on December 21, 1866. The annihilation of 79 soldiers and 2 civilians by the combined forces of hundreds of Sioux, Northern Cheyennes, and Arapahos, was the largest loss by the western Army until Custer’s Last Stand, a hundred miles north, ten years later. In 1867 the Indians forced the abandonment of all the forts along the Bozeman Trail, and they burned Fort Phil Kearny to the ground.
Ten years later, the town of Buffalo was established as the seat of Johnson County when the Army returned to defend the Bozeman Trail and build Fort McKinney at the base of the Bighorn Mountains. Buffalo was at the center of the confrontation between open-range ranchers and homesteaders which resulted in the infamous Johnson County Cattle Wars of 1892. The fights between these two elements have been the subject of numerous books and movies. Owen Wister’s novel The Virginian, considered to be the first of the western genre, featured the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo. It’s still there.
I enjoyed my brief stay in Buffalo. I was impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication of the members of the WSHS. Of course, I was thrilled when Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two, won First Place in the Publications Category Fiction, “in recognition of the outstanding accomplishments and contributions to Wyoming’s legacy.”
On Saturday, September 10, 2016, The Wyoming State Historical Society presented Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two, with First Place in the Publications Category Fiction, “in recognition of the outstanding accomplishments and contributions to Wyoming’s legacy.”
It is a great honor to receive this prestigious award from a dynamic historical society. I will post additional information and photographs over the next few week about my visit to Buffalo, Wyoming, my participation in the 63rd Annual Meeting of The Wyoming State Historical Society, and the research I did in the local area for the new book I am writing. My sincere thanks to the President and Awards Committee of The Wyoming State Historical Society.
As many of the readers of this blog are aware, every few weeks I contribute a blog posting to Mad About MG History. On September 1, 2016, I wrote about the 100th birthday of the National Park Service. In several previous blog postings on this website I have mentioned the research trips I have made to various National Park Historical Sites. Being able to walk the ground where the actual events occurred has been helpful in my writing of The Iron Horse Chronicles. I am thankful our nation maintains both environmental and historical sites for us to enjoy.
Three members of Anthem Authors have book blubs listed in the August 2016 issue of Roundup Magazine, the official publication of Western Writers of America. Anthem Authors is a writing and critique group comprised, at the present, of thirty-three residents of Sun City Anthem in Henderson, Nevada.
The members of Anthem Authors are prolific writers and many have published their work; but Donna, Bob, and I, also belonging to Western Writers of America, devote much of our writing to the western genre. You will find our books at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
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In Bear Claws, Will also sees the “Lone Tree” around which the UP curved the tracks in order not to have to cut down the only tree growing on the windswept summit. The railroad no longer follows the original route that Will Braddock knew. The Dale Creek Bridge is gone. The “hell on wheels” town of Sherman Summit no longer exists. The limber pine, which could be as old as 2,000 years, does exist and stands between the westbound and eastbound lanes of I-80. Stopping at this turnoff on the Interstate, one gets a feel for what Will and his friends experienced when the trains sped westward at forty miles per hour until the engineer had to apply the brakes at the Dale Creek Bridge.
The Wyoming State Historical Society Awards Committee informed me this past week that Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two has been selected to receive an award in the Publications Category for 2016. The award will be presented at a luncheon to be held in Buffalo, Wyoming, during the Society’s annual meeting on Saturday, September 10, 2016. I plan to be there.
The location is fortuitous because Buffalo is sixteen miles from Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site where I want to do additional research on the book I am currently writing. This novel takes place in 1866 along the famous Bozeman Trail. I visited Fort Phil Kearny in 2010, but my ongoing research has generated questions that can best be answered by walking the ground and talking to local experts.
I look forward to the trip for three reasons. First, to receive an award from the Wyoming State Historical Society for Bear Claws is thrilling and gratifying. Second, to visit the site again where my characters will act out their scenes will be helpful and rewarding. Third, I always enjoy traveling through the beautiful state of Wyoming.
While we enjoyed the fine food and a buttery chardonnay, we reminisced about the many other places where we had lived when celebrating previous anniversaries: Orange County, California; Denver, Colorado; Honolulu, Hawaii; the Sinai Desert, Egypt; the Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
Bear Claws, The Iron Horse Chronicles–Book Two, has been selected as a finalist for the 2016 Will Rogers Medallion Award in the category for Younger Readers. Eagle Talons, the first book in the trilogy about Will Braddock and his quest to determine his own destiny at the time of the building of the transcontinental railroad, won the Bronze Will Rogers Medallion Award in 2015 in the Younger Readers’ category.
I plan to go to Fort Worth, Texas, to participate in the festivities and award ceremony on October 29, 2016, when the medallions will be awarded. I wrote about my experience and posted this photo last year when I received the Bronze Medal for Eagle Talons. Click the Archives button in the sidebar to see my post from October 26, 2015.
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