[5] The city was named after General Philip Sheridan, Union cavalry leader in the American Civil War.

[6] Several battles between US Cavalry and the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Shoshone, and Crow Indian tribes occurred in the area in the 1860s and 1870s before the town was built.

In 1878, trapper George Mandel built a cabin on Big Goose Creek, since reconstructed in the Whitney Commons park near the Sheridan County Fulmer Public Library.

Jack Dow surveyed the townsite for Sheridan in 1882, at the behest of John Loucks, first mayor of the town who had served under Gen.

Maps of the day show Sheridan as part of the "hinterland" providing raw goods to cities like Chicago.

By 1910, an electric streetcar line, the only one in the state, connected the mining towns of Monarch, Dietz, and Acme to Sheridan.

Many immigrants from Poland, Italy, Greece, Germany, Mexico, and Japan settled in Sheridan, finding work in coal mines, railroad, or agriculture.

One Muslim immigrant was Zarif Khan, a charismatic Afghani tamale and hamburger vendor from what became Pakistan whose neighborly generosity is still remembered in Sheridan.

By the 1920s, Sheridan was an agricultural processing center for wheat, dairy, and sugar beets, with a stockyard for cattle shipping by rail.

Many subdivisions were built on former small farms outside of Sheridan in the 1970s and 1980s as the dairy, wheat, and sugar beet industry consolidated to other areas in Montana and South Dakota with more production capacity.

Many dude ranch guests moved to Sheridan permanently, leaving a lasting influence on the area's economy, cultural life, and charity institutions.

In the 21st century, Sheridan is the economic center for a large area spanning three counties in north-central Wyoming and southern Montana.

The town has a relatively diversified service economy — including government, healthcare, education, real estate, mining, and financial services, with a growing manufacturing sector — in contrast to many communities in Wyoming that rely mostly on natural resource extraction, government jobs, or national park tourism.

Sheridan has a strong rodeo culture that draws from ranching history as well as a tradition of catering to the wild-west entertainment and shopping tastes of locals and tourists.

[25] The mix of cowboy and American Indian pageantry is still a major flavor in Sheridan's annual summer celebrations, akin to rodeos in other reservation-border towns like Pendleton, Oregon.

Sheridan's milieu of cowboy-Indian cross-pollination and community relations provided part of the inspiration for the Walt Longmire mystery novel and TV series created by local author Craig Johnson.

It draws 25,000 guests to its annual, weeklong western celebration and performance each July at the Sheridan County Fairgrounds.

Exhibits include pieces by Charles M. Russell, Frederic Remington, Edward Borein, Winold Reiss, Thomas Moran, and Hans Kleiber, among many others.

Kendrick Park, at the corner of Badger and Beaver Streets, includes a children's play area, a seasonal ice cream shop, a swimming pool, chainsaw carvings,[32] and a buffalo and elk conservatory.

[35][36] The facility was operated by the Wyoming Board of Charities and Reform until that agency was dissolved as a result of a state constitutional amendment passed in November 1990.

Bighorn Airways offers airplane and helicopter air charter service, as well as an aircraft repair and installation center.

United Express, operated by SkyWest Airlines, offers scheduled nonstop flights to Denver, Colorado.

Senator Malcolm Wallop, the brother of lifetime friend Lady Porchester whose husband, George Herbert, 8th Earl of Carnarvon, was the queen's godson.

It remained rather unpublicized before local reports of the Queen shopping at local stores caused international media outlets to hound the area, seeking to capture the obscure idea of British monarchy gathering at a ranch in the "Old West" nestled beneath the Rocky Mountains.

Coverage drastically intensified the following day with the Brighton hotel bombing, a nearly successful assassination attempt on Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and reports of the Queen's impromptu call with President Ronald Reagan to discuss the matter.