Excerpt from the book Stories of Early Days in Wyoming by Tacetta B. Walker, copyright 1936, page 195 on burials in Smoky Row Cemetery: "McCrea, owner of the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, where it is said Owen Wister wrote a large part of his "Virginian," was a case of suicide. He was at the (hot) springs (near Thermopolis, Wyoming) taking the baths. He was sitting on the side of the tub when he held a cloth with chloroform over his face. When he fell, he fell into the filled tub."
Upon further research, in Annals of Wyoming, April 1955, Vol 27, No 1, in an article on The Old Occidental Hotel, page 27, “It was here (at the Old Occidental Hotel) that John R. Smith and Charles A Farwell, two of the commissioners appointed by the territorial governor for the purpose of organizing the county, met and proceeded with the steps necessary for the calling of an election of county officers to handle affairs of the new County. This first meeting was held in the north wing of the Old Occidental, and the record is dated Clear Creek, March 29, 1881. It goes on to state that for Clear Creek precinct, Porter Kempton, John Erhart, and A. J. McCray were appointed judges of election and that the voting place was designated as A. J. McCray’s Occidental Hotel on Clear Creek. (Just why the Occidental was inferred as belonging to McCray is not known, as construction was performed by Charley Buell, McCray having been taken in as a partner some time during this same spring, 1881.) Also, it was through the effects of Mr. and Mrs. Buell that the Old Occidental came to be so well known for its hospitality in the years to come.”
Excerpt from the book Stories of Early Days in Wyoming by Tacetta B. Walker, copyright 1936, page 195 on burials in Smoky Row Cemetery: "McCrea, owner of the Occidental Hotel in Buffalo, where it is said Owen Wister wrote a large part of his "Virginian," was a case of suicide. He was at the (hot) springs (near Thermopolis, Wyoming) taking the baths. He was sitting on the side of the tub when he held a cloth with chloroform over his face. When he fell, he fell into the filled tub."
Upon further research, in Annals of Wyoming, April 1955, Vol 27, No 1, in an article on The Old Occidental Hotel, page 27, “It was here (at the Old Occidental Hotel) that John R. Smith and Charles A Farwell, two of the commissioners appointed by the territorial governor for the purpose of organizing the county, met and proceeded with the steps necessary for the calling of an election of county officers to handle affairs of the new County. This first meeting was held in the north wing of the Old Occidental, and the record is dated Clear Creek, March 29, 1881. It goes on to state that for Clear Creek precinct, Porter Kempton, John Erhart, and A. J. McCray were appointed judges of election and that the voting place was designated as A. J. McCray’s Occidental Hotel on Clear Creek. (Just why the Occidental was inferred as belonging to McCray is not known, as construction was performed by Charley Buell, McCray having been taken in as a partner some time during this same spring, 1881.) Also, it was through the effects of Mr. and Mrs. Buell that the Old Occidental came to be so well known for its hospitality in the years to come.”
Advertisement
Advertisement
