Crook County

The panel's oldest town began as a creek. Gold seekers from the Deadwood rush worked west to Sand Creek, and when the gold thinned, Alexander Moorcroft, born in Ireland, stayed on and laid out six blocks; the state's own history dates the town to 1879 rather than the panel's 1876. Local legend names it for Beulah Sylvester, a schoolteacher in Exira, Iowa. In 1927 the publisher Moses Annenberg stopped there for lunch, was told his trout came from Sand Creek, and later built a lavish log lodge on it, Ranch A.

What the plaque says

Crook County Serving as a western gateway to the Black Hills, Crook County, Wyoming is a place of beauty and diversity. The varied terrain includes the state's lowest elevation, 3,125 feet, situated north of the town of Aladdin, while rugged Warren Peak rises to a height of 6,800 feet. Among the county's many communities is nearby Sundance from which famous desperado Harry Longabaugh took the name "Sundance Kid" after being imprisoned there for horse stealing. Long a favorite hunting ground of Plains Indian tribes, few white men had entered what is now Crook County before 1874. In that year, an elaborate military expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer passed near this point prior to discovering gold in the Black Hills. Hordes of gold hungry prospectors quickly descended on the area, although the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had reserved the Black Hills for the Sioux Nation. Bloody conflict ensued, but General George Crook, for whom the county is named, played an instrumental role in defeating the Indians and confining them to reservations. Crook County was thus opened to white settlement. In 1876, gold seekers founded Beulah, Crook County's oldest town. Despite the initial lure of gold, ranching provided the county's enduring wealth. After the Civil War, great cattle drives brought Texas Longhorns to the Northwestern plains. Herds were driven through Moorcroft and western Crook County on the Texas Trail, leaving in their dusty wake the beginnings of a cattle kingdom in Wyoming. Stockraising, lumbering, oil and tourism all play an important role in the modern day Crook County economy. Tourists enjoy the abundant recreational opportunities offered by scenic Devils Tower - the nation's first national monument - the Black Hills National Forest and Keyhole State Park.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vore Buffalo Jump — 12 mi
  A gypsum sinkhole where hunters trapped bison for 250 years, each hunt sealed in its own layer, and the reason Interstate 90 bends south here.
• Aladdin Coal Tipple — 18 mi
  The last nineteenth-century wooden coal tipple believed to stand in the country, which fed Black Hills gold smelters and is now close to falling.
• Devils Tower National Monument — 22 mi
  A plug of gray-green igneous rock cooled into columns 40 million years ago, first climbed on a stake ladder in 1893, where a parachutist was stranded for six days in 1941.

More markers nearby

• Custer Expedition — steps away
• Inyan Kara Methodist Episcopal Church — 9.9 mi
• Devils Tower — 20 mi
• Canyon Springs Station: Site of the "Treasure Run" Stage Robbery — 25 mi