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County, Wyoming. McCoy took a
liking to the country, homesteading
640 acres on Owl Creek in 1915,
45 miles west of Thermopolis.
According to the present owner,
over the years McCoy added to
his holdings until he accumulated
he became acquainted and friends with
10,000 acres and 12 buildings before he sold
the Shoshone and Arapahoe tribes. He
participated in sweat lodges and buffalo hunts. out in 1936. He called his place “Eagle Nest.”
The ranch now consists of 160 acres and is
McCoy understood Native American sign
an inholding surrounded by other land.
language and earned the named Banee-ihhnatcha (Soldier Chief) and Nee-hee-cha-ooth McCoy entered military service in 1917
(High Eagle). He became a brother to Goes
with the rank of captain and served as an
in Lodge. McCoy’s friendship with the Native instructor in bayonet drill. He later served
Americans lasted for years.
with a cavalry regiment at Fort Riley, Kansas,
As typical of a cowboy, McCoy moved from then Artillery Officers School of Fire at Fort
Sill, Oklahoma. By the end of World War I,
one outfit to another as work opportunities
McCoy rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
arose. After the Double Diamond, he joined
In 1919, at age 28, McCoy was appointed to
forces with Irish Tom Walsh’s outfit around
the position of Adjutant General of Wyoming.
the Owl Creek Mountains in Hot Springs
McCoy lived a charmed life. His boyhood
dreams of becoming a cowboy led to
his making friends with the Wind River
Reservation Native Americans. His friendship
with the Native Americans and his military
duty enabled him to meet Hollywood folks,
who hired him to engage Native Americans
for filming. He escorted them to London to
promote The Covered Wagon in 1923.
That bit part in Famous Players-Lasky
Corporation’s The Thundering Herd resulted
in a contract with MGM as a star western
actor beginning with the 1926 film War Paint.
A number of his movies were filmed in
Wyoming, including the MGM film Wyoming
starring Dorothy Sebastian alongside McCoy.
Tim McCoy was one of the great western
actors in a career which encompassed 92
films over five decades. Unlike many other
western actors who weren’t true horsemen
or cowboys, Wyoming’s Colonel Tim McCoy
was The Real McCoy.
In later life, McCoy served in World War II in
France, where he met Ernest Hemingway. He
was inducted into the National Cowboy Hall
of Fame (now called the National Cowboy &
Western Heritage Museum) in Oklahoma City.
The current owner of Tim McCoy’s “Eagle
Nest” ranch in Wyoming is an avid McCoy
fan, and over the years has collected many
McCoy movie photos and records on the
McCoy ranch. Tim McCoy passed away in
1984 at the age of 93. W L M
16
Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Summer 2014