There are few towns in Wyoming whose main thoroughfare reflects history more than Buffalo's Main Street. The street wanders lazily down a hill, across rippling Clear Creek and up another hill no matter which way a visitor is headed. Visitors often speculate that the street was named after the herds of bison that trailed to the sparkling waters of Clear Creek to drink. The truth is the curve in the street had nothing to do with wandering animals. In 1878, six years before Buffalo actually became a town, a local merchant decided he wasn't getting his share of the traffic coming into the rapidly growing settlement which sprang up to accommodate the shopping needs of Fort McKinney personnel. So, the tenacious merchant asked a friend to bring in a bull team and change the dirt path slightly to go by his store. The curve remains to this day.

At the confluence of the road coming in from the fort site to the west and the north/south street is the Johnson County's red brick courthouse. The oldest building in downtown, it was built in 1884 and still has it original exterior. A two story Neo-classic building, it is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. In the early days the top of the building bore a wooden white cupola. On the east side of the courthouse is an emblem of a rising sun representing the beckoning of the dawn of a new day. In 1942, a thoughtful resident who declared the trees had outgrown her lawn donated two small spruce trees to the county. They bring a touch of nature to the northeastern side of the building reminding visitors of the proximity of thousands of evergreens growing in the Bighorn Mountains just a few miles to the west. Next door to the courthouse is the Jim Gatchell Museum of the West. Built in 1909 as the Johnson County Carnegie Library one building evokes history inside and out. The museum is an integral part of the community and draws visitors from around the world.

A short walk down Main Street is the famed Occidental Hotel. In the summer of 1879 a party of men on the Bozeman Trail stopped for lunch on the banks of Clear Creek. One of the men, Charles E. Buell cooked a meal for his companions. He liked the area along the stream, so he pitched his tent there. He was hardly settled in when a group of miners stopped by and asked to board with him for a few days. His cooking skills were such that he even prepared meals for them. One of the men asked Buell if there was something that would serve as a bank where their mined gold could be store. Buell led the miner to the back of his tent, pulled off a buffalo robe and revealed a hole in the ground. The gold was deposited therein and the robe was put back in place. The hole is remembered in legend as Buffalo's first bank. Whether it was this incident which prompted the entrepreneurial Buell to consider erecting a hotel is not certain, but it is known that he soon replaced his tent with a more permanent structure. In a short time this hostelry became the stage stop for the new Rock Creek and Junction stage. The building, which also housed Buffalo's first post office, was constructed of logs hauled down from the mountains. It had two storied and was 24 by 28 feet, with a shingled roof. There were six bedrooms upstairs and a lobby, dining room and kitchen on the lower level. Later two sets of rooms were added on in a lean-to-fashion --they could be entered without going through the main complex. Out in front was a traditional hitching post. In the fall of 1880, the pioneer was finished and ready for occupancy. The Occidental soon became the center of activity, the stopping off place for new arrivals and for public meetings and social gatherings. When Johnson County was formed in 1881, the new hotel was the site of the newly appointed commissioners. The preserved hotel registers ring with celebrity showing the names of Buffalo Bill (William F. Cody), Theodore Roosevelt, Generals Sheridan and Cook, and even that naughty fem fatale of the West, Calamity Jane. But the Occidental is probably best known for playing host to the well-known author, Owen Wister. Wister is said to have placed the climactic shoot-out scene from his famous western novel, The Virginian in front of the hotel. Wister spent a great deal of time at the Occidental when he came to Buffalo.

For many years there existed between the south side of the hotel and the north bank of Clear Creek, a popular eating-place known as the Busy Bee. No longer in existence, the small diner was famed not only for the atmosphere where customers could peer through the window into the crystal clear and fish-filled waters of Clear Creek, but also for the home-cooked food and genial rapport with the Bee's owners. The Main Street Bridge became famous when it was discovered to be "only place in the United States where you could legally make a U-turn on a bridge." That has also changed, but the memories of the Busy Bee's pies and burgers live on in the mouth-watering memories of those who patronized the place.

Just south of the bridge is a red sandstone building that was built in 1898. Beginning in 1907 it housed the First National Bank until the devastating flood of 1912 raising Clear Creek's water 10 feet above the sidewalk. If you look closely on the side of the building facing the creek, you will see a mark indicating how high the water was. For decades the building housed the popular bar known as the 21 Club and is now a steakhouse.

On down the street is a sports clothing and tack business that was built when the town was young and became known as the Capitol Hotel and Saloon. It was known as "the finest inn this side of Cheyenne." The owner, William H. Zindel installed new plumbing in his saloon. He included an automatic bar pump that delivered beer, ale and soda directly from kegs or fountains below through ice-packed coils into faucets at the bar. Zindel had the forethought to install a trough of running water around the bar for the convenience of tobacco-chewing customers. Zindel's place was famous for its cleanliness. It was the day of the "nickel schooner" of beer and free midnight lunches that included such unusual fare as possum and pickled pig's feet. In a corral behind the saloon Zindel kept elk or other interesting creatures for the benefit of his customers.

Just east of the intersection of Fort and North Main streets is a mini-mall, recently erected on the site where Robert Foote's Mercantile once stood. Foote, like Zindel had a penchant for catering to his customers. He paid special attention to the ladies who shopped at his store, even going so far as to build a veranda onto one side of the building so the ladies would have a place to rest and enjoy female camaraderie for a time. But there were no ladies around in April of 1892, when the simmering factions of small settlers and affluent cattlemen reached its climax in what would go down in history as the Johnson County Cattle War/Invasion. Foote mounted his celebrated black horse and dashing up and down the streets with his white beard flowing in the wind, exhorted the citizens to defend their town. He even threw open his store inviting the defenders to load up with any needed supplies. Foote's patriotism was a plus factor in the ultimate outcome of the conflict.