Former three-term Sheridan County Sheriff William T. Harwood Sr., 91, Cheyenne, died June 19 of natural causes at Vencor Hospital in Denver.
Born Sept. 1, 1899, in Fort Benton, Mont., to Thomas and Maude Harwood, he moved to Montana’s Blackfoot Indian Reservation in 1907. At age 10, he worked as a water boy at the first hotel in Glacier National Park.
He attended Carlisle Military School, where he was named top military officer.
He moved in 1920 to Parkman, where he operated a mercantile and post office until 1927, when he joined the Sheridan Police Department. He was elected Sheriff in 1933.
Mr. Harwood had also worked as a railroad fireman in Sheridan, a Wyoming Highway Patrol captain, an interior decorator, and a Western artist under the tutelage of Charles M. Russell.
In Sheridan he belonged to First Congregational Church, Elks, Shrine, Shrine Indians, Golden K Club, and Blue Lodge. He raced in the Thanksgiving-night marathons between Sheridan and Buffalo.
He moved in 1938 to Cheyenne, where he worked as a bar bouncer. Eight brothers and a sister preceded him in death.
Survivors include his wife, Ethelmae, whom he married in Dayton on Sept. 6, 1925; a son, William Harwood Jr., Bremerton, Wash.; a daughter, Betty Messing, Aurora, Colo.; a sister, Mrs. Edward Guandapie, Brownie, Mont.; five grandsons; and two great-grandsons.
Services were June 24 at Wiederspahn-Radomsky Chapel of the Chimes, Cheyenne. Cremation has taken place.
Memorials may benefit Salvation Army or Shriner’s Crippled Children’s Hospital.
