When the Maxwell Land Grant Company discovered that Frenchman, Henri Lambert, who was at one time, the personal chef to President Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant, was operating a hotel and restaurant in Elizabethtown, they induced him to come to Cimarron. The Lambert Inn, a hotel and saloon, started business in 1872, with Henri Lambert at the helm.  Built during a time when law and order was non-existent, the saloon quickly gained a reputation as a place of violence, where it is said that 26 men were shot and killed within its adobe walls. The first question usually asked around Cimarron in the morning was: "Who was killed at Lambert's last night?" Another favorite expression following a killing was: "It appears Lambert had himself another man for breakfast." Lambert's Saloon was a favorite of such frontier men as Clay Allison, Black Jack Ketchum and Buffalo Bill Cody, all of whom left their marks in the tin ceiling of what is now the main dining room. Later the inn was renamed the St. James and continues to operate today.