Tisdale Divide

Frank Canton, the former sheriff this panel names, was not born Frank Canton. He was Joe Horner, a Texas cowboy who led a gang that robbed banks in the 1870s, went to prison in 1877 and walked away from a work detail in 1879 under a new name. In Wyoming he became county sheriff and then a stock detective. Arrested at his own urging in December 1891, he was freed within days when witnesses placed him elsewhere that morning. He later served as a deputy marshal in Oklahoma and Alaska, confessed to the Texas governor and was pardoned.

What the plaque says

Tisdale Divide Wyoming in the 1880s was an open range controlled by cattle kings. Some of the powerful stockgrowers thought rustling was a problem, but others were just as concerned about the influx of small operators who used government land grants which threatened the open range. John A. Tisdale, one of the small operators, was dry-gulched in a gully just north and east of this spot as he returned home from a shopping trip to Buffalo in late November, 1891. Locals were outraged by the killing of this respected family man. Frank Canton, a former Johnson County sheriff, was accused of the murder, but he was never brought to trial. Stock detectives, such as Canton, were hired by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association to protect their large herds and to intimidate would-be ranchers. This incident, coupled with the murder of Orley E. Jones a few days earlier, set the stage for the infamous invasion of Johnson County in April, 1892.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Occidental Hotel — 7.6 mi
  Buffalo's 1880 grand hotel, its 1908 saloon ceiling still pocked with bullet holes, won once in a poker game and nearly torn down in the 1990s.
• Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site — 21 mi
  A Bozeman Trail fort whose wood trains were attacked for two years, and the wagon-box corral where its woodcutters held out behind new breech-loaders in 1867.

More markers nearby

• TA Ranch — 5.7 mi
• Fort McKinney Monuments and Plaques — 6.8 mi
• Fort McKinney — 7.3 mi
• Powder River Country — 7.7 mi