The Inter-Ocean
The Inter-Ocean was one of several Cheyenne hotels that were big deals and major watering holes, something very common in that era and for decades thereafter (and still somewhat true in larger cities today). It's remembered to Western History for being the location referenced by Tom Horn in his famous conversation with Joe LeFors.
If you go to the Inter-Ocean to sit down and talk a few minutes some one comes in and says, 'Let us have a drink,' and before you know it you are standing up talking, and my feet get so *&^*&^^ tired it almost kills me. I am 44 years, 3 months, and 27 days old, and if I get killed now I have the satisfaction of knowing I have lived about fifteen ordinary lives.Horn was in fact arrested outside of the Inter-Ocean.
The hotel had been built by Barney Ford, a businessman who had been born a slave, a status that he escaped from. His father was the white plantation owners where his black mother was enslaved. After escaping he lived an adventuresome life and rose to great wealth in Colorado.
He apparently liked the name "Inter-Ocean" as he built another hotel in Denver's 16th Street by that name. Like the Cheyenne hotel, it is no longer there, which is a real shame as funky buildings like this are all the rage in Denver now..
Denver's Inter-Ocean
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