Ten Sleep was originally named Sackett, after the Colonel who mapped the area. Trappers later named it Ten Sleep after the Indian method of determining distance. The area was ten sleeps from Yellowstone and ten sleeps from Ft. Laramie.
Highway 16, which runs from Worland through Ten Sleep to Buffalo, is one
of the two routes over the Bighorn mountains which is open all year.
The range war which erupted between cattlemen and sheepherders at the turn of the century came to a head near Ten Sleep with the Spring Creek raid in 1909. Masked cattlemen surrounded a sheep camp, killing three sheepherders and about 5000 sheep. The resulting trial and convictions brought an end to open hostilities between the cattle and sheep ranchers.
