Buffalo Bulletin, Heritage 2019 – 27
room to anyone else.
Irene managed the hotel until 1982
when she turned over operations to
the grandchildren of Margret Smith
Bowmen. Normal operations would
continue until 1983 when the hotel
closed to all but the long-term tenants.
In January 1984, the hotel closed com-
pletely.
It was during these years the small
businesses within the storefront of
the Occidental became vital to the
hotel’s continuing existence. Those
stores included flower shops, cloth-
ing stores and even the public gas
company. Bollinger makes mention
of two businesses that continued to
operate in spite of the hotel’s closure,
a long standing barber shop and a little
restaurant called the Busy Bee, started
by Bill and Sarah Voiles and made
famous by Sagebrush Sven’s column
in the Buffalo Bulletin and later the
Longmire novels.
In 1990, at the urging of Jeanette
Burris McCain, the Occidental was
reopened for a commemorative pro-
gram on the 1892 Johnson County
Cattle War. It took 35 volunteers to
clean and prepare the hotel. In 1991,
100 volunteers worked during the
summer months greeting visitors to
take part in self-guided tours, accord-
ing to Bollinger.
The hotel was purchased by John
and Dawn Wexo in 1997, who relo-
cated from California and intended to
use the building to house their publi-
cation business, Knowledge Company.
The Wexos were fascinated with the
preserved furniture and once they
removed the false ceilings and a few
coats of old paint, realized the build-
ing deserved renovating and turning
into a museum of Johnson County
history.
According to Bollinger, it was the
Wexos’ intent from the onset to honor
the fine old structure by restoration
wherever possible and replication else-
where.
The Wexos applied to become
a federal non-profit and joined the
American Association of Museums in
Washington D.C.
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks impact-
ed the economy of the nation and
forced the Wexos to abandon their
publishing work. Their intentions
for the hotel changed as well and the
couple decided to restore it to a fully
functioning hotel.
The Occidental was in a state of
neglect, according to Bollinger. The
deterioration extended to the floors,
ceilings, stairways, tiles, walls, plumb-
ing and electrical work. Renovations
cost more than $1 million, with the
lobby and the back bar being the first
to be restored. It took more than year
and a half to restore the bar alone.
But John Wexo stated on his website
that due to the foresight of Margret
Smith Bowmen, the furniture had been
preserved along with other items that
had been part of the history of the
Occidental.
The Wexos’ work was awarded with
the 1999 Wyoming State Historical
Society Maurine Carley Award for
Historic Preservation. The hotel would
also win the 2007 and 2008 “Best
Hotel in the West” awards in “True
West” magazine.
In 2004, singer and songwriter
David Stewart began to help Dawn
renovate rooms and perform renova-
tions on the hotel.
With clientele low and at the urg-
ing of his wife, Jackie, Stewart began
to perform live bluegrass music with
friends in the Occidental saloon
to boost business. The legendary
Occidental Jam was born.
The Wexos began to sell shares of
the Occidental to people from all over
the nation, and by 2011 the Stewarts
became the majority shareholders. By
2015 David and Jackie became the
sole owners and restoration continued,
according to Stewart.
Dawn had restored six rooms and
the Stewarts finished the rest, bringing
the number to 19 fully restored rooms
that also had to be brought up to mod-
ern codes.
The Stewarts continue to operate
the Occidental today. The Busy Bee
restaurant serves breakfast and lunch,
with dinners in the summer. The addi-
tion of the Virginian Restaurant offers
fine dining and window nook seats
and the Occidental Jam now plays
every Thursday night.
The Stewarts have worked to
restore more of the Occidental than
ever before. The brick work on the
exterior of the building was refur-
bished using the original bricks,
extracting them and turning them
around, according to Stewart.
In March 2018, the original wood
floor was restored, preserving the
aged patina, showing the history of the
floor.
All of this effort has brought the
Occidental back to life. The Stewarts
have been featured in multiple maga-
zines, including “National Geographic
Traveler” and “True West,” winning
multiple awards.
The Occidental is older than
Buffalo itself, beginning as a tent and
camp stove. It has played host to some
of the West’s greatest names, includ-
ing Presidents Theodore Roosevelt
and Herbert Hoover, Buffalo Bill
Cody and Calamity Jane. Now into
its second century, the Occidental will
Photo by Floyd Whiting
continue to be the heart of Buffalo David Stewart is a Gold Record songwriter and perform-
with the dedication of its owners to the er. He and his wife, Jackie, became sole owners of the
preservation of time and the top notch Occidental Hotel in 2015. The Stewarts have worked tire-
service it has always offered. lessly to restore and preserve the hotel’s history.