If Longmire Days had to pay Australian actor Robert Taylor to attend, it would be far out of reach. The actor doesn’t come for the money. He comes to Longmire Days in Buffalo every year for something else. Something money can’t buy.
“If they had to pay me, they couldn’t afford me,” Taylor told Cowboy State Daily, shaking his head as he thought about the question Sunday night at the TA Ranch, during the wrap-up party.
After a long and thoughtful pause, his arms swept suddenly out, encompassing the Wyoming mountains and the big sky that surrounds the TA Ranch.
“This is magnificent,” he said, shaking his head a little.
Then he glanced over at a crowd of people who had just been through a long day of Longmire activities.
Ruby’s Brunch with Louanne Stephens, who plays the office manager on the television series that keeps everyone, including Absaroka Sheriff Walt Longmire himself, in line.
And a Tale of Two Walts, with New York Times Bestselling author Craig Johnson, who created “Longmire,” and Taylor, who created Walt’s persona on television.
Each of them explains their own approach to the characters a little bit during the annual presentation, then turns it over to the fans, to ask questions. About half the room raise their hands when Johnson asks how many are new to the festival.
“People keep finding the series,” Johnson told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s stunning like that. Literally, almost every year, half the audience is brand-new and hasn’t been here before, which is just amazing to me. Because I do see a lot of the same, wonderful people.”
As the day was winding down and the sun was setting on another Longmire Days festival, Taylor considered why he’s so loyal to “Longmire” and the Longmire Days festival that celebrates it.
He’s turned down paying work twice to be in a place where no one is paying him at all. Except with smiles and reunion hugs, from the extended family he’s met over the years he’s participated in the festival.
“These people are wonderful,” Taylor said. “I’m just a working actor. I’m just a guy in the world, grateful to be hired. I live my own life, and I take care of my family. But we love Wyoming. We love the people here. I just adore this place.
“The people in this part of the world are so, so special,” he continued. “I just feel honored and happy that I’ve got a little piece of it. A little part of it. I was able to play that role (Absaroka Sheriff Walt Longmire) and bring life to something that everybody seems to respect and like. That’s important. It’s fun, and it’s great.”
Janet Hartung shows off her latest Walt Longmire tattoo. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Robert Taylor prepares a chuckwagon plate with prime rib, baked beans and potato salad. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Louanne Stephens chats with a couple of young cowgirls, and asks them if they plan to participate in her talent show next year. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Longmire Days banners line the streets of Buffalo for a two-day event that transforms the tiny town into the fictional Durant in Absaroka County, where Sheriff Walt Longmire lives. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Janet Hartung has Longmire tattoos on both legs, including her favorite actor Robert Taylor's signature. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Moving To Longmire
Participants in Longmire Days have come from all over. Texas, South Dakota, the East Coast, the West Coast, from Europe, from Australia, from Canada.
They come by the thousands, to celebrate something indefinable that Longmire creates for them. For some, it’s a sense of home. For others it’s the thrill of meeting someone famous. And there’s adventure in following in the literal footsteps of Absaroka’s county sheriff.
Johnson County is, after all, the land of Longmire. It is Absaroka County, and Buffalo is Durant. Many of the places named in the book are real — Crazy Woman Canyon, Trail 131, Lost Twin Lakes.
Visitors and tourists can find all of those places on a real map and visit them.
Johnson told Cowboy State Daily he changed the name of Johnson County to Absaroka so he would have some creative license with the stories. But he likes using real-world places in the area for the realism, too.
People appreciate the approach and are fascinated by Buffalo — Durant — when they arrive. Some of those fans have gone to great lengths in their love for Longmire.
Olivia Bartnick, for example, heard about the festival on a trip to Montana that passed through Wyoming. The next year, the South Dakotan attended the festival, and not very long after that, just decided to move to the area.
She now works at the Tunnel Inn in nearby Story.
“I just sort of fell in love with the area and the people,” she said.
Sylvia Jordan, 78, wearing a pearl snap blue shirt with silver threads, discovered Longmire Days and is hooked.
The Milwaukee woman travels 78 mph — driving her age — when the speed limit allows, in a camper van she calls “Paint,” which has 177,000 miles on it. Now, no matter how many miles the van has on it, the Buffalo event has become a must on her summer itinerary.
“This is crazy in a good way,” she said. “The show has been over since 2107 and yet they’re still gathering.”
She got a free month of Netflix to binge watch all the shows after discovering the festival in Buffalo. Now she’s started reading the books.
What she likes about the event is the family feeling she gets. People welcomed her, and now she has new friends. They’ve become part of her “travel family.” She also appreciates that the stars who come to the event are willing to sit for a spell and chat with their fans in so many of the events. That’s not something she’s seen happen anywhere else on quite the scale Longmire Days offers.
Ink For The Cause
South Dakotan Janet Hartung made her first trip to the festival in 2017, mainly for the chance to meet Taylor, her favorite actor, and get his autograph.
“But in 2017, I wasn’t too happy with the autograph session,” she said. “They moved us along like cattle, and I never got to talk to Adam (Bartley) or Rob.”
Bartley played Archie “the Ferg” Ferguson, a sheriff’s deputy for Walt Longmire.
The experience had her thinking, all the long way home to South Dakota, about what to do differently next time she went. And that’s when she had what she calls her “light bulb” moment.
“Why don’t I get a portrait of him and get it tattooed?” She told Cowboy State Daily.
When she returned to the event with a portrait of Walt Longmire tattooed on her leg, Taylor couldn’t help but be impressed.
She asked if he would sign his name right underneath the tattoo.
“Right after that I went to the tattoo artist, because magic marker seems to like come off too soon,” she said.
She also, eventually, got other Longmire tattoos. Including one that says Longmire in all capital letters down her leg. The letters are an anagram of both characters and the feeling that Longmire Days gives her.
The “L” is both for Walt and for love; for example, the “M” is for family, and the “I” is for dedication.
But these days, she has a different reason for continuing to come to Longmire Days.
“When you come out here, you create a family,” she said. “And I just can’t wait to get here every year to see my extended family.”
Johnson and Taylor still remember Hartung, who is now a regular volunteer, helping put on the event.
Johnson recalled Taylor saying if he’d known she was going to make the signature a tattoo, he would have been more careful in writing it.
Taylor, meanwhile, doesn’t see it as weird that fans love Longmire so much. He loves it, too.
“It resonated with people in a deep, deep, significant way, as it did for me,” Taylor said. “I don’t know what it is, but we just know we’re fellow travelers, and we’re very, very happy to be in each other’s company. Anybody who likes Longmire is a good person. It’s kind of staunch, stoic, decent, and quiet, and fun.”
We Are Family
“It feels like a family reunion,” Stephens told Cowboy State Daily. “And if any fans are reading this, I just want them to know, it’s not fake. I really enjoy seeing them.”
Like Taylor, Stephens receives no compensation for her time coming out to Longmire Days. But she would not dream of skipping the event.
“I love Craig (Johnson), and I really admire him,” she said. “I want to support him in any way that I can.”
She loves how the cast of Longmire is still close-knit so many years later.
“Every year I keep thinking, well they won’t have this again,” she said. “But I think as long as Rob comes — and he loves Wyoming and Craig — they’ll probably keep having one.”
The family reunion aspect is one reason she believes people are still coming to Longmire Days, and their love touches her heart.
“It makes me cry every year to see all these people, and they love Longmire,” she said. “And that’s another thing, I think. Ever since, starting with ‘The Sopranos,’ we’ve had so many anti-heroes. You think about it, just every show, even like, ‘Yellowstone.’”
Walt Longmire isn’t an anti-hero. He has his issues, like any human being alive. But he’s a good-hearted cowboy in a sin-filled world, and Stephens believes that is compelling for this day and age.
“When everyone’s evil, it’s boring,” she said. “Because, yeah, we’ve all got evil in us, and there are bad people, but most people are trying to be good.”
The Occidental Saloon in Buffalo is full of Longmire Days festivalgoers. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A full house turns out at the TA Ranch Roadhouse to hear Craig Johnson and Robert Taylor talk about their approaches to create the fictional Absaroka Sheriff Walt Longmire. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
"I'm not famous," Louanne Stephens tells a room full of people who have come to see her. But the participants laughed at all her jokes, and many lined up for her autograph, too. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
From left, Tammy Bachman, Robyn Salazar, and Janet Hartung are among people who help make Longmire Days in Buffalo happen. They feel like they have found an extended family in the vent, which offers a yearly respite from the cares of the world. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Nailed It, But …
Taylor has been in bigger movies than Longmire. He was Agent Jones in the 1999 blockbuster movie, “The Matrix,” for example, and he appeared in other movies like action thriller “Vertical Limit,” “Hard Word,” “Storm Warning,” “Rogue,” “Coffin Rock” and many others.
“Longmire,” though, was special.
All of them, except for Longmire, are just “stuff,” Taylor said. He considers Longmire the signature role of his career, and he is still amazed, to this day, that he got the role.
“It’s hard to get these big jobs because they always hire famous people,” he said. “So I put a tape down, a test down, on tape. And I remember thinking it went really well.”
But then he forgot all about it. He’s a working actor. He can’t waste his time obsessing over the ones that get away. When he got a call from the producers in January or so, he couldn’t believe it.
But then, he just had to laugh at what he heard next.
“Can you be in LA tomorrow?” he remembers them asking.
“Maybe the day after,” he recalls telling them, adding, “You know, there’s the international time zone for God’s sake.”
When he arrived in LA, there was a lot of competition. Five or six people on the short list along with him.
“Before you go in and do the last read, the deal is negotiated,” he said. “I guess so that you have less of a position of strength.”
Taylor didn’t let that bother him at all, though. He’s been at this for a long time, and he knew what to expect. Or so he thought.
The audition room almost threw him.
“Instead of being a room full of execs, it was all dark and smelly, with unattractive, ADs (assistant directors) and lighting people,” he said. “So it was like being on a film set, and it was all dark.”
Taylor has made a career out of rolling with the flow, though. And, really, when he thought about it, this was perfect for him.
“This was my world,” he said. “All dark. So I did a few sayings, a couple of scenes, and I just, sometimes you just nail something. And I could hear this sobbing, two or three people. I just knew I had nailed it.”
A Long Longmire Road
But no one would look at Taylor afterward, so he thought, ‘Nah, I’m not going to get this. He’s gonna go to some big star, of course.”
The producers offered to drive him back to his hotel, but Taylor didn’t fancy an awkward car ride with people he was sure were just going to reject him.
“So, I said, ‘I think I’ll walk,’” Taylor said. “And so, I walked through Hollywood.”
He thinks that over for a moment, and backtracks a little.
“I strutted,” he said. “And I stopped at this old Thai place I used to eat at and had some drinks and food. And I thought, ‘I won’t get that, but I could not have done a better job.’”
The next day, though, the producer came to see Taylor, surprising him.
“She didn’t even look at me,” Taylor said. “So, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I will get it.’”
But the next day he flew home to Australia with no word. He busied himself catching up with the backyard weeding he had missed doing while in LA.
That same day though, he got the call, informing he was it. He was going to be Walt Longmire in the new television series, “Longmire.”
It still feels like fate had a hand in it.
Big names get these roles, he said more than once while telling the story.
“But I knew exactly how to play him, and I did that,” he said. “Nobody told me, nobody said anything to me, because I guess they liked what I was doing. So, for me, it was a gift, and I love it.
“For me, it makes sense of choosing this as a career,” he continued. “Otherwise, it’s just a bit of this, a bit of that. But having done that, it’s so important. And that’s why I come here. Because these people love it. And I’m just going to keep coming until it ends.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
