The Crown Jewel of Cody, Wyoming
I’ve saved the best for last. William F. Cody was a legend around the world before his death in 1917. Born in 1846 he joined the Colorado Gold Rush at age 13 and a year later in 1860 joined the Pony Express. He later fought in the Civil Way and in 1867 became a renowned buffalo hunter. In 1872 Ned Buntline, a writer of what were known as “dime novels” persuaded him to become the persona of “Buffalo Bill” and he joined Buntline’s original Wild West Show and toured with them for ten years until creating his own touring troop, “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West” in 1873. He and his troop became the image of the American West, touring for the next 10 years before pursuing business interests in the West, particularly in the area of the Big Horn Basin. After his death in 1917, friends in the Cody area began planning a museum in his memory. That museum has grown into the incredible Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
The Center actually consists of five museums, each in a separate building connected to an entrance hub (with the inevitable over-priced gift shop and restaurant!) like spokes on a wagon wheel. The five museums are the Draper Natural History Museum, the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, and the Cody Firearms Museum. It is impossible to truly represent the entire collections in each museum (in fact, when you buy a ticket it’s good for two days since one is seldom enough to visit it all.) I’m going to share a few highlights from each museum.
Draper Natural History Museum
The centerpiece of the spacious museum is a spiraling walkway which traces a climb from the prairie floor to the tops of the mountains. Each level around the walkway has numerous displays and several dioramas with life-size models of the plant and animal life at each level.
The Plains Basin (below 5000 feet)
Mountain Meadows (above 6000 feet)
Mountain Forest (6000-10,000 feet)
The Alpine (above 10,000 feet)
The Buffalo Bill Museum
Reflecting his status as the “star” of his day, Parker Brothers (the company that created Monopoly) developed “The Game of Buffalo Bill” in 1896. The American Tobacco created a game “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 6 Acts” and distributed the game pieces in packages of cigarettes. Different combinations of the cut-outs created the 6 acts according to an accompanying program. This display contains life-size representation of the original game pieces.
The Wild West show crossed the Atlantic and performed for Queen Victoria at her Golden Jubilee in 1887. The performance was memorialized in giant posters which were then used to advertise the show on its’ return to the United States.
Buffalo Bill traveled throughout the west in relative luxury, using a two room tent that had separate sleeping and entertaining rooms.
The Plains Indian Museum
The stereotypical teepee sits at the entrance to the Plains Museum, displaying an ordinary housing set up. More significantly, the teepee is surrounded by fascinating original clothing, equipment and other artifacts from the late mid to late 1800’s.
The man in the red shirt is NOT part of the display, it’s a tourist taking a picture. This demonstrates the scale of this particular display!
Whitney Museum of Western Art
I have to say that I’m not really into spending a lot of time in art museums, but, of course, the subject of most this art is the west, and, in particular, there is an exceptional display of period bronze pieces by world famous artists. Perhaps the most interesting to me was the actual plaster cast for the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that many of you have actually seen! It sits on one of the South Park Blocks in downtown Portland between Jefferson and Madison Streets. The statue was a gift to the city of Portland by Dr. Waldo Coe, a personal friend of Roosevelt. To the right a picture of the actual statue. Below are the actual plaster casts used to create the statue from the museum.
Several other bronzes include “On Common Ground” by Herb Mignery, which commemorates the visit of Prince Albert I of Monaco to Cody to go buffalo hunting with Buffalo Bill and “The Bronco Buster” by Frederic Remington that represents this famous Western artist’s first effort in bronze in 1895.
Paintings were the way that most Americans learned about the early west. Two of the more prolific and renowned painters of the period were Albert Bierstadt (1930-1902) and Thomas Moran (1937-1926). Several of their paintings are represented in this collection, including Bierstadt’s 1881 “Geyser’s in Yellowstone” and Thomas Moran’s 1892 “Golden Gate, Yellowstone National Park”.
Cody Firearms Museum.
I’m not particularly into guns but I have to say the breadth of this collection is amazing. It focuses not only on guns of the West, but extensively displays the development of the gun over the centuries with not only actual guns, but replicas of foundries, etc. These pictures give some idea of the extent of the collection.
There is also a section displaying guns from TV and the movies. This display includes guns from the TV series Bonanza. On the lower left is the gun and holster used by Ben Cartwright and on the right is the holster and gun used by Little Joe. The upper left is the 1894 Colt used by Gary Cooper in a number of his movies, including High Noon.
Hopefully you have an idea of the scope of the collections in each museum. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West is a rare find out here in the middle of the Big Horn Basin!
Post a Comment