A trip to Cody, Wyoming is incomplete without a stop at the Buffalo Bill Center Of The West. This museum is a Smithsonian affiliate and it deserves that credential as it is well done. Here you will find five museums and a research library under one roof. For the price of a single ticket, you have access to the Buffalo Bill Museum, Whitney Western Art Museum, Plains Indian Museum, Draper Natural History Museum, Cody Firearms Museum and McCracken Research Library.
It is large. It is comprehensive. It is impressive.
I’m guessing you could do the whole thing in a day but we didn’t even try. We started in the Buffalo Bill Museum and then went to the Plains Indian and Natural History museums. I am not all that interested in firearms and my eyes were glossy by the time we talked about going through the art museum. Besides, we needed to hit the road for a long trip back to Casper on a windy day and it seemed ill advised to try it.
There is a raptor exhibit where you’ll meet a Bald Eagle that was once injured and cannot live in the wild. You’ll also find some beautiful sculptures and Buffalo Bill’s childhood home which was originally located in LeClaire, Iowa but was moved a few times before landing here on permanent display.
Yes, you can go inside. No, it’s not much to look at unless you have some imagination in which case you might find it kind of exciting. Buffalo Bill walked these floors as a child!
This place is too much to cover in a single story so I’ll revisit it a few times. Meanwhile, I would like to point out some things.
It is named for and celebrates Buffalo Bill Cody, a frontiersman and Army scout turned showman who pioneered live entertainment that was the predecessor to the modern day rodeo. His wild west show was performed across this great nation and for royalty across the pond. He shaped a narrative that romanticized the Wild West in ways that we still hold dear today. His actions led to the near decimation of the American Buffalo.
Depending on who you are and where you stand, he’s either a decent guy or something short of the devil himself. I’m somewhere in between because he did eventually see the damage he had done and became an advocate for the bison, for equal pay and treatment for women, and for Native Americans.
His legacy is strongly felt in Cody, the town he founded, which has kept his story alive.
This museum doesn’t celebrate the man without acknowledging that many of the stories are myth or legend. Yes, they embrace the persona and the big picture story but they also remind you of his failings and inconsistencies. I guess what I’m saying is that you don’t have to like the man to appreciate his museum or the collection of other museums that tell stories of the Plains Indians or the natural history of the area.
I suspect that I’ll be telling you stories from this museum off and on for a while because there are so many cool stories worth mentioning.
Interesting side note: Buffalo Bill was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Late in life when he applied for the $10 monthly pension allowed to these honorees, he was denied the income. Soon after, the War Department ruled that Cody and several hundred other recipients dating back to the Revolutionary War did not meet the criteria for the Medal and their names were stripped from the list. That was in 1917. Buffalo Bill died not long after.
If you’re thinking about going to Cody, be sure to allow a day for this place. Find info here and look for more stories soon.
Did you know that Annie Oakley was from Ohio? She’s buried here too.
She had a surprisingly tough start in life though. Born Phoebe Ann Moses on August 13, 1860, she was about six years old when her father died. Since the family was already struggling, this loss pushed them further into poverty.
Annie and Frank spent most of their life together living out of trunks and traveling but they did eventually come back to Dayton before returning to Greenville where she died at the age of 66. Frank died just 18 days later. He had already been ill but stopped eating when he learned of her passing.
After all, she wasn’t just a rugged marksman- she was a lady who enjoyed nice things. You’ll see some of her pretty dishes, clothes and other personal items at the Garst Museum. I’m sure she would enjoy some cheerful old fashioned flowers.
As seen at the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave. Can you read it? They clearly have their priorities straight.
My Denver adventure last year included a stop at the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave. It’s on Lookout Mountain near Golden and just a few miles off I-70 west of Denver.
So it should come as no surprise that he founded Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1883, touring the country with his large company of performers and animals.
The above image shows the 1883 cast of his show. You can buy this picture in the museum gift shop.
His Wild West show cross crossed the country for years and even went to Europe. The museum has a book that lists all the cities and dates the show performed. I learned they were in my own area many times, including small towns like Chillicothe, Circleville, Jackson, Hillsboro, Ironton and Marietta as well as Ohio’s larger cities.
There was a contingency that believed he should be buried in Cody, Wyoming, the town that he founded. At one point the Cody chapter of the American Legion allegedly offered a reward for the return of his body to their town.