Historical Marker
Owen Wister
Medicine Bow, Carbon County · Wyoming
Erected by Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming, 1939
The bronze gets the novel's best-known line wrong. In The Virginian the hero, insulted over cards by Trampas, lays his pistol on the table and answers, When you call me that, smile; the plaque casts say. It was dedicated on July 2, 1939, less than a year after Wister's death, on a pyramid of petrified wood beside the depot. Medicine Bow had already traded on the book with the Virginian Hotel in 1911, and south of the tracks another plaque marks the store where Wister slept on the counter in July 1885.
What the plaque says
"When you say that, smile" Owen Wister whose writings acquainted the nation with pioneer Wyoming ranch life, made Medicine Bow the beginning of his most popular novel, "The Virginian". Dedicated by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming July 2, 1939
Where it stands
41.89536, -106.20002 · Directions
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