By Photo: Maneybe / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was the most famous Westerner of his time, a frontier scout turned showman whose Wild West show toured the United States and Europe for three decades. Colorado and Wyoming both have strong claims on his story, and for years they argued over where he belonged.
The scout and the showman
Cody was born on February 26, 1846, in Le Claire, Iowa Territory. As a young man he rode for the Pony Express, as he later told it, served in the Civil War and worked as a buffalo hunter supplying meat to railroad crews, which earned him his nickname. He became a civilian scout for the Army on the plains and was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872. The medal was rescinded in 1917 under rules that excluded civilians and was restored in 1989.
Dime novels made him famous, and in 1883 he launched Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a traveling show with riding, shooting, staged battles and performers including Annie Oakley and, for one season, Sitting Bull. It played for European royalty and made him one of the best-known Americans in the world.
Wyoming: the town that bears his name
In the 1890s Cody turned to developing land in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin. The town of Cody was founded in 1896, and in 1902 he opened the Irma Hotel there, named for his daughter. He promoted irrigation projects and tourism to nearby Yellowstone National Park. Today Cody is home to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a museum complex with collections on his life, Western art, firearms and Plains Indian cultures.
Colorado: the death and the grave
Cody died on January 10, 1917, at his sister’s home in Denver. His body lay in state in the rotunda of the Colorado State Capitol, where thousands of people filed past. On June 3, 1917, he was buried on Lookout Mountain, above Golden, with a view of the plains and the mountains.
The choice angered many people in Cody, Wyoming, who believed he had wanted to be buried there. Stories circulated for years about plans to move the body, and according to local accounts the grave was later covered with a heavy layer of concrete. The Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, now operated by the City and County of Denver, opened next to the gravesite in 1921.
Visiting
Lookout Mountain is a short drive from Golden on Lariat Loop Road, and the museum is open most of the year. In Wyoming, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the Irma Hotel are in downtown Cody. For another Western reputation built in print, see Calamity Jane in Wyoming.
Sources
- Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, City and County of Denver.
- Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming, and its Papers of William F. Cody project.
- History Colorado.
- U.S. Army Center of Military History, Medal of Honor records.
