Eastern gateway to Yellowstone National Park, and an enjoyable overnight stop in its own right, Cody is a self-conscious frontier town and a busy center for local ranching and wood products industries. The outskirts are lined by Wal-Marts, Kmarts, and all the fast-food franchises you could name, but the town center along Sheridan Avenue (US-20) still looks like the Wild West town Cody was built to be.
Sitting on the Bighorn Basin plains at the foot of the mountains, Cody was founded in the late 1890s by Wild West showman “Buffalo Bill” Cody, whose name graces most everything in town, including the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (daily in summer, closed Mon. rest of the year, closed Dec.–Feb.; $15; 307/587-4771). One of the country’s great museums, and certainly the best in the Wild West, this place tells all you could want to know about the American frontier. The center is divided into five main collections. First stop should be Buffalo Bill’s home, which was moved here from LeClair, Iowa in 1933; then move on to the Buffalo Bill Museum, which includes a battery of movies and artifacts from his famous “Wild West Show,” a circus-like extravaganza that toured the world. The Whitney Gallery of American Art, one of the country’s most extensive collections of western art, displays important works by George Catlin, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Remington, plus some fine contemporary works. Gun freaks will enjoy the Cody Firearms Museum, which displays more than 5,000 historic weapons. Saving the biggest and best for last, the Plains Indian Museum has an amazing collection of art and artifacts created by the diverse Plains Indian peoples, from beadwork dresses to a reconstructed Sioux tepee. Pride of place is given to an extraordinary buffalo robe painted with scenes of the legendary Battle of Little Big Horn.
At the west edge of Cody is Trail Town (daily mid-May–mid-Sept.; $6; 307/587-5302), a low-key but engaging collection of old buildings moved here from northwestern Wyoming and southern Montana. Wagons, buffalo robes, and other relics are on display. A memorial cemetery holds the remains of Wild West figures, including Jeremiah Johnson, played by Robert Redford in the 1972 movie named for the man.
