Craig Johnson reflects on TV show, future of beloved sheriff

It was on a recent trip abroad when Craig Johnson — author of the popular “Longmire” series of books and the television series it spawned — realized first-hand just how far-reaching his fictional Wyoming sheriff’s popularity had become.

“I remember getting into a taxicab in Prague in the Czech Republic, and I had my cowboy hat on,” Johnson recalled. “The taxicab driver turned around and looked at me and said, ‘Longmire!’ and I was like, ‘Whaaat?’”

Turns out the taxi driver, having no idea who Johnson was, was a fan of the show, associating Johnson’s appearance with his fictional counterpart.

“He told me he watches the show, and I was like, ‘That’s great, I write the books.’ And he goes, ‘Whaaat?’”

“Hollywood is very pervasive,” Johnson continued. “It gets out there and into places where maybe the books can’t quite so readily get into.”

A bit of Hollywood will come to Park County on Tuesday, as Johnson and a pair of actors from the television series will be on hand as grand marshals of the July 4 Cody Stampede Parade.

Johnson has a great affection for Park County, as Powell, Cody and Meeteetse figured prominently in the early success of his novels. He served as grand marshal of the Cody Stampede Parade in 2013, and is looking forward to returning with the stars of the show.

“I’m just a lonely cog in the gears of the machine,” Johnson said with a chuckle. Robert Taylor, who plays Sheriff Walt Longmire, and Adam Bartley, who plays deputy Deputy Jim “The Ferg” Ferguson, “are the big wheels here,” Johnson said.

After leading Cody’s July 4 parade (which starts at 9:30 a.m.), Johnson, Taylor and Bartley will sign books from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s museum store.

“What’s fun about this is, Park County and Cody and Meeteetse and Powell have always been some of my favorite areas to tour,” Johnson said. “They were the first to invite me. When ‘The Cold Dish,’ my first book, came out, it was the librarians over there that got in touch with me. They were the very first ones in Wyoming who said, ‘Hey, we’d like you to come talk to our libraries.’ So I’ve made it a habit to get over there quite a lot, which is a lot of fun.”

After “Longmire” became a popular TV show, Johnson approached Cody parade organizers with the idea of having some of the actors serve as grand marshals.

“They said, ‘We would absolutely love that,’” Johnson recalled. “It’s taken us a couple of years to get the schedules worked out, but it’s a nice gift to Park County, to bring some of the Longmire folks over there and let them be a party to what I consider to be one of the finest rodeo and parade events in Wyoming.”

The stars of Longmire will be wrapping up their final week of shooting on the sixth and final season of the show when they roll into Cody. The show has cultivated a devoted following since debuting on the A&E Network in 2012; it moved to Netflix after its third season. Though he can’t confirm anything is in the works, Johnson wouldn’t be surprised if viewers haven’t seen the last of Sheriff Longmire and his crew on Netflix.

After the Stampede parade, the “Longmire” festivities will move to Buffalo for the Friday-Sunday Longmire Days event that celebrates the TV show and books. Now in its sixth year, the festival has become one of the region’s biggest events of the summer, with over 10,000 attendees at last year’s event, according to the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce.