CASPER, Wyo. — It’s not every day that Casper gets a star sighting — especially in the middle of the day — but Friday, March 6, 2020 was an exception.
Australian-born actor and Wyoming’s favorite fictional Sheriff, Robert Taylor tagged himself on Instagram in Mills, Wyoming outside G’Ma’s diner Friday afternoon. Taylor played Sheriff Longmire on the six-season television crime series Longmire, based on Wyoming Author Craig Johnson’s novel series of the same name.
“It’s good to be home,” Taylor said in the Instagram post after saying that he was in the Casper area. He didn’t elaborate on the reason for his visit, but hashtagged Wyoming companies like King Ropes and Surf Wyoming.
Taylor’s character in Longmire, which aired its first three seasons on A&E and its final three seasons on Netflix, is the eponymous Walt Longmire, the fictional sheriff of the equally fictional Absaroka County. This no-nonsense, Rainier beer-drinking character solves all manner of misdeeds and murders across Wyoming in both the book series and the television series.
Longmire’s television run came to an end in 2017. Craig Johnson is still writing Longmire books, however: Land of Wolves was released in 2019.
So revered has the character become in the Wyoming culture that Johnson County (the real-life analogue for Craig Johnson’s invented Absaroka County) hosts Longmire Days on an annual basis. Taylor is a frequent attendee at Longmire days and is slated to appear in the 2020 edition of the event.
