Lost Trail

Limited Numbered & Signed

One of the first cattle herds in Western Kansas was owned by Homer Wheeler.  Wheeler, a former sutler at Fort Wallace, operated the Rose Creek Ranch, a large and well known ranch in Western Kansas at the time.
In May 1870, he was given the contract to supply fresh beef to the troops at Fort Wallace and soon after, he purchased one hundred fifty beef cattle from Chester A. Thomas of Topeka and had the cattle driven to the ranch from Cherokee County in Southern Kansas.
Homer Wheeler was born in Vermont in 1848, Wheeler went to a business college in New York before moving to Kansas in 1868.  He took several trips on the Great Plains with famed scouts Will Comstock, William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and William "Wild Bill" Hickcock.  Wheeler later became a civilian volunteer on Army scouting expeditions out of Fort Wallace.  He also owned and operated the Rose Creek Ranch near Fort Wallace Kansas.  In 1875 he took part in the Sappa Creek fight where he recognized for gallantry and recommended for appointment as second lieutenant. 
Wheeler went on to serve at various posts throughout the West, including Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming, where he participated in a campaign against the Indians.  During the Spanish-American War he served in Puerto Rico.  He commanded the District of Hawaii from 1910-1911.  Before his Hawaiian command he also served in the Philippines from 1902-1904 and in Cuba from 1906-1909.
Wheeler became a colonel in March 1911 and retired in Los Angeles, California, that September.  He wrote "The Frontier Trail" in 1923 and "Buffalo Days" in 1925.  he died on April 11, 1930. 
