Roaming Horses, Big Horn, Wyoming

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Big Horn is a small unincorporated community in Sheridan County, northern Wyoming, tucked against the eastern foothills of the Bighorn Mountains a short drive south of the city of Sheridan. The landscape here is classic high plains ranch country: rolling grasslands, cottonwood-lined creeks, and wide skies, with the forested slopes and rocky peaks of the Bighorns rising sharply to the west. Horses grazing across open pasture are a familiar sight, and the quiet, spacious setting gives a strong sense of the working West. The area was settled in the late nineteenth century, when cattle ranching spread into the Powder River country after the Indian Wars. Big Horn became known for its ranching heritage and for an unusual sporting tradition: wealthy ranchers, including British settlers, brought polo to the region, and the Big Horn area has remained one of the oldest centers of the sport in the American West. Historic ranches such as the Bradford Brinton Ranch, now home to an art museum and the Brinton Museum, preserve the character of that era. Horses remain central to life around Big Horn, whether on cattle operations, at polo fields, or on trails leading into the Bighorn National Forest. The changing seasons bring green summer pastures, golden autumn grasses, and snow-dusted winters, all framed by the mountains that give the community its name.