Permanent settlement in this region began by the late 1870s at the end of the Plains Indian wars, as ranching expanded across Wyoming Territory. The nearby Goose Egg Ranch dates to 1877, when the Searight Brothers Cattle Company trailed more than 20,000 head of cattle into the territory, and in 1883 Gilbert Searight filed a homestead claim on 640 acres along Poison Spider Creek just north of here. Other ranches, including the '07, Martin Gothberg's Ranch, the Speas Ranch, and the CY Ranch, were established as cowboys, foremen, and investors claimed spreads of their own. Sheep and cattle grazing created an economy that encouraged the westward extension of rail lines across Wyoming, while livestock ranged over tens of thousands of acres and ranchers helped neighbors during roundups. Gilbert Searight managed his holdings from a cut-stone ranch house with rock and log outbuildings. After J.M. Caret, Wyoming's first United States Senator and author of the Wyoming statehood bill, acquired the property in 1886, the Searight House became part of the history of nearby Bessemer. William Clark later operated it as a hotel during Bessemer's promising days, offering reputable accommodations as well as saddle horses and buggies to visiting oil field speculators. The enduring identity of the Goose Egg Ranch came from cowboys who found a goose nest on an island in the North Platte River and brought its eggs to their cook, and ranch livestock bore an oval-shaped Goose Egg brand. After Owen Wister used the ranch house as a setting in his 1902 novel The Virginian, the ranch gained sudden fame, but curiosity seekers and souvenir hunters damaged the house so badly by the 1950s that it had to be demolished. The Goose Egg Ranch, older than both Natrona County and Casper, remains an active cattle operation today.