Like his friend, Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wister spent time in Wyoming. On one trip, he spent an uncomfortable night on the counter of the local mercantile--an experience he adapted in THE VIRGINIAN.  He was a prolific writer of many different genres. 

Before becoming an author, he was a musician and studied law at Harvard.  

Medicine Bow's Museum is home to his cabin. The Virginian Hotel has some of his letters and a page of manuscript.

A Horseman of the Plains

“They [the houses] seemed to have been strewn there by the wind and to be waiting till the wind should come again and blow them away. Yet serene above their foulness swam a pure and quiet light, such as the East never sees; they might be bathing in the air of creation’s first morning.”     Medicine Bow in The Virginian (1902)

The Virginian is credited with being the first literary Western novel. Although there were dime-novels based in the West, the Western came into its own with The Virginian.   It originated archetypes that are still recognizable. The cowboy embodies the code of the West--be ethical, be courageous, be strong, be kind to the less fortunate, work hard, and ride for the brand.

Although fiction, the novel had much of its story based on real events, such as the Johnson County war and spending the night on the counter at the Medicine Bow Mercantile. 

For further information, 

The play, The Virginian by Wister & LaShelle ran for 138 performances on Broadway. It then successfully toured the country for over ten years. 

In 1914, the leading actor, Dustin Farnam, went on to star in the first silent film based on the novel directed by Cecil B. DeMille. It was followed by another silent film in 1923. A version in 1929 (starring Gary Cooper), and another in 1946 also saw The Virginian at the movies. In 2000, a made-for-TV movie aired. A loose adaptation of the novel was filmed in 2014.

The television show, The Virginian, aired from 1962-1971.

From a letter to Medicine Bow:

I am a British writer. I have visited Medicine Bow two or three times, and stayed at the Virginian Hotel. In 2001 I wrote a play about Owen Wister and how he came to write The Virginian. It was broadcast by BBC Radio in the UK in August 2001. I thought it was lost, but have just found it in an obscure archive out of San  Francisco. You might be interested to hear it, if you can get over the terrible American accents.