The Lost Owl Creek Colony

Pioneers of Outlaw Country: Wyoming History

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They were daring adventurers, forgers of a new life, homesteaders …. and forgotten to history. These vanished people were true pioneers of Hot Springs County, Wyoming.

The Pioneers of Outlaw Country.

Cowboys, Lawmen and Outlaws… to the businessmen and women who all helped shape Thermopolis and Hot Springs County, Wyoming.

Here are their stories.

The Lost Owl Creek Colony

Many, many years ago, strangers came from the south and began to build homes in the solitudes of Wyoming. To the tribes who roamed this area, it was a prized hunting ground known for mild winters. They had fought bloody wars for their right to hunt the plentiful game and were jealous of any who also tried to claim the valley beneath the Owl Creek Mountains.

The Indians say in their own language: “Beautifully the Great Spirit looks at the other countries in the summer, but he lives here all the year.”

These newcomers were seen as a threat by the tribes. The strange people worked among the rocks in the mountains, the country yielding them rich treasures, not only furs, but gold and other precious metals taken from the ground.

According to their oral traditions, the Indians attacked and destroyed the outsiders in their new homes. They took as their prize the strange animals belonging to these interlopers. This was how the tribes in the Big Horn Basin first came to own horses.

Some dismiss this story as mere legend… a tale told to General George Sliney in the late 1800’s that he wrote down in his memoirs. But was it really only a myth?

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