The Haunted Occidental Hotel and the Girl Called Emily

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated July 28, 2026 · How we verify

The haunted Occidental Hotel sits at the foot of the Bighorn Mountains in Buffalo, Wyoming, on ground the Bozeman Trail once ran through, and it has been trading on both its history and its ghost stories since long before either was fashionable. Locals call it the Ox. Opened in 1880, it is one of the few frontier hotels in the American West still taking guests in rooms that look broadly the way they looked when the town around them was arguing over grass and water at gunpoint.

The Ox at a Glance

• Opened: 1880, in Buffalo, Wyoming, beside the historic Bozeman Trail route
• Nickname: “The Ox”
• Past guests named in hotel lore: President Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody, Butch Cassidy
• Restored by: Dawn Dawson, who took ownership in 1997 and spent roughly a decade on the work
• Most repeated ghost story: Emily, a young girl in a white dress
• Still operating: Yes, as a hotel and saloon

A Frontier Hotel With a Guest Book Full of Legends

The Occidental’s reputation rests on the sheer volume of Western history that passed through its doors. Hotel tradition places Theodore Roosevelt, Buffalo Bill Cody and Butch Cassidy under its roof, and Buffalo’s position on the Bozeman Trail made it a natural stopping point for anyone moving through northern Wyoming. Some of these associations are better documented than others, which is true of almost every surviving frontier hotel in the West. What is not in dispute is that the building was at the centre of town life during the years when Johnson County was one of the most dangerous counties in the territory.

Red Angus, the Johnson County War, and a Job at the Occidental

One name connected to the hotel deserves more attention than the outlaws usually get. William “Red” Angus, born in Zanesville, Ohio on November 9, 1849, worked at the Occidental Hotel in his later years, after the most violent chapter of Johnson County’s history had closed.

Angus arrived in Wyoming in 1880, the same year the hotel opened, having driven cattle up from Texas. Before that he had been a military teamster and a member of the Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, and he fought at the Battle of the Washita under George Custer. He stayed in Wyoming, opened a bar, and in 1886 was elected sheriff of Johnson County.

That put him squarely in the path of the Johnson County War, the range conflict between large cattle barons and the small ranchers and homesteaders who competed with them for livestock, grass and water. Angus sided with the homesteaders, believing they were being preyed upon by the big outfits. When hired gunmen working for the cattle barons murdered the homesteaders’ most prominent figure, Nate Champion, on April 8, 1892, Angus raised a posse of roughly 200 people from Buffalo and cornered the invaders, about 50 men, at the TA Ranch.

The siege that followed was conducted like a military operation. Angus and several Civil War veterans surrounded the barn, shot the invaders’ horses, and dug pits and trenches. The cattle barons took casualties. The standoff ended only when the 6th Cavalry rode out from Fort McKinney and Colonel J.J. Van Horn negotiated custody of the besieged men in exchange for a promise of proper trials. In the end, none of the cattle barons or their hired guns were held to account for the killings.

Angus ran for sheriff again in 1893 and lost. He stayed in Buffalo anyway, working at the Occidental Hotel, serving as Deputy County Clerk and Johnson County Treasurer, and running a ranch in Kaycee. He died of natural causes in 1922. Notably, no ghost story at the hotel is attached to him. His connection here is a matter of record, not of legend.

Ruin, Then Dawn Dawson’s Ten Year Rescue

The Great Depression hit the Ox hard, as it did most grand small-town hotels, and years of neglect followed. The turning point came in 1997, when Dawn Dawson bought the building and began a restoration that took about a decade. The result is unusually intact: original saloon ceilings, period furnishings, and interiors that read as a working hotel rather than a stage set. That authenticity is a large part of why the ghost stories stick.

Emily, the Girl in the White Dress

The Occidental is frequently promoted as the most haunted place in Wyoming, a claim worth treating as marketing rather than measurement. What the hotel does have is one persistent, consistent story.

Emily is described as a young girl who died of illness while living at the hotel with her mother. Guests and staff report seeing her in the hallways in a white dress, and the encounters attributed to her are small and physical rather than dramatic:

• A child’s voice heard in corridors and rooms
• A tap on the shoulder with nobody behind the guest
• A gentle tug at the hair
• Glimpses of a girl in white along the upstairs halls

By every account, Emily is regarded as harmless. Nobody describes her as threatening, and the hotel treats her as part of the household. These are reported experiences, passed between guests and staff over many years, and none of them constitutes evidence that the building is haunted. Other stories circulate too, most of them less defined and less repeated than Emily’s.

Staying at the Ox in Buffalo

The Occidental operates as a hotel and saloon, so the most straightforward way to experience the building is simply to book a room and spend an evening in the bar under those original ceilings. Buffalo itself is small, walkable and close to the Bighorns, and the Johnson County War is a live subject locally, with the TA Ranch battle site nearby. Visitors who come purely for the ghost stories should set expectations accordingly: the reported phenomena are quiet, occasional and unpredictable. The history, on the other hand, is available on demand.

See The Occidental Hotel for Yourself

Sources

• legendsofamerica.com
• spartacus-educational.com
• jcs-group.com
• Wikipedia: William Angus (lawman)

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