Oliver Perry Hanna was born in 1851 in Illinois. He became fascinated by frontier life after reading Beadle’s dime novels as a boy. At the age of sixteen, he headed west in an oxen-drawn wagon. His destination was the Montana territory. He tried his hand at gold mining, but takings were sparse, so he turned his attentions to hunting buffalo. He sold the hides.
Hanna spent eight years in the Big Horn Mountain country and in the Rosebud country, saying “I knew all about it, the haunts of the Indians, the trails.” He put his knowledge to use helping guide a contingent of soldiers, including Buffalo Bill Cody and a war correspondent for the Chicago Times, to the scene of Custer’s Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Resolved to settle in the West, Hanna built the first settler’s cabin in what is now Sheridan County, Wyoming. It was made of small logs, with a stone chimney and a bear skin door. Hanna lived off the land and made his own clothes from deer hide.
Read about Oliver Perry Hanna’s life on the frontier in the Coffeen Family papers at UW’s American Heritage Center