Buffalo Bill Historical Center

One of the best-kept secrets in the West is the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, a complex of five internationally acclaimed museums and a research library.

The late author James Michener once called the Buffalo Bill Historical Center “The Smithsonian of the West,” and with good reason.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center stands as the largest history and art museum between Minneapolis and the West Coast, encompassing over 300,000 square feet of space on three levels. Because it is located in Cody, Wyoming, a town with a population of just 9,000, 52 miles from the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park, many visitors are stunned when they venture inside its doors. Nowhere else in the United States is such an important museum located in such a remote location.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center has positioned itself as the single most important cultural attraction in the region surrounding Yellowstone National Park. Its collections include thousands upon thousands of priceless treasures related to the art, cultural and natural history, ethnology, and technology of the American West.

Originally begun in a small log cabin in 1927 and known as the Buffalo Bill Museum, the facility then housed memorabilia belonging to William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody. Cody, for whom the town of Cody is named, was an authentic western hero whose career paralleled or became linked with most of the significant events in western American history. As a mere boy, he worked as a bullwhacker and mounted messenger for a freight-hauling company, and later joined the gold rush to Pike’s Peak and rode for the Pony Express. During the Civil War, he served with a Union guerrilla group known as the Kansas Jayhawkers.

But it was not until after the War Between the States that he began to grow in fame. As a hunter supplying meat for workers building the transcontinental railroad, he earned the nickname Buffalo Bill. Later, his fame was cemented as a civilian scout for the Army, when he won the Medal of Honor. His career as the consummate showman followed, beginning with his appearance in stage plays in the East and later as the head of his own world-famous theater troupe.

Buffalo Bill’s showmanship found its widest audience with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, an extraordinary outdoor touring show that he called “an educational exhibition on a grand and entertaining scale.” Through this show, which ran for 30 years, Buffalo Bill brought the West to the world, showing people who didn’t have the opportunity to travel to the West what America’s frontier legacy was all about.

Today, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center does much the same thing — it brings the West to a world that would otherwise know about it only through television and motion pictures, sources that are not necessarily reliable. Nearly 250,000 people each year visit the Historical Center, making it the most heavily visited single attraction, outside of the park itself, in the entire Yellowstone National Park region.

And the institution has become far more than a monument to the life and times of Buffalo Bill. The Whitney Gallery of Western Art, dedicated in 1959, houses one of the most important collections of Western American art in the world. Masterworks are on display by George Catlin, Alfred Jacob Miller, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, William R. Leigh, N.C. Wyeth and many others.

In 1968, the Buffalo Bill Museum was moved into a new building attached to the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, forming the core of today’s Buffalo Bill Historical Center. The Plains Indian Museum, housing one of the richest collections of American Indian artifacts in the world, features the art and culture of the most important tribes of the Northern Plains. This museum was added in 1979 and reinterpreted in 2000. That 2000 $3.8 million reinterpretation truly moved the Plains Indian Museum into the 21st century and created “a living breathing place where more than just objects are on display,” Advisory Board Member and Crow tribal historian Joe Medicine Crow said.

And in 1991, the Cody Firearms Museum, housing the world’s largest collection of firearms of the American West, as well as European arms dating back to the 1500s, was added to the complex. The heart of the Cody Firearms Museum collection of over 6,000 firearms is the Winchester Collection, which was moved to Cody from New Haven, Connecticut in 1976.

The Draper Museum of Natural History opened in June 2002. Challenging the traditional approach of exhibiting objects in glass cases, the new museum leads visitors down an interactive trail through the sights and sounds of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. This museum presents natural history in the context of the humanities and promotes increased understanding of and appreciation for, the relationships binding humans and nature in the American West.

Rounding out the Historical Center complex is the McCracken Research Library, which is an important resource for scholars around the United States.

The Historical Center annually hosts important events and programs. Besides special exhibitions that often travel to important venues throughout the nation, annual events include Cowboy Songs and Range Ballads (April), a program that features some of the nation’s best performers of authentic cowboy music and the Plains Indian Powwow (June), attracting the best dancers and drummers of the Northern Plains; and the Larom Summer Institute in Western American Studies (June), featuring education courses for college credit. In fact, the active education department creates a myriad of programming for children and adults covering a broad spectrum of topics about the West throughout the entire year.

One of the West’s premier social events, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center Patrons Ball in September is combined with the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale and the Western Design Conference. The entire week of activities is known collectively as Rendezvous Royale, a celebration of the arts in Cody, and serves as a major fund-raiser for the institution.

The Buffalo Bill Historical Center is open year round and hours vary. Adult admission rates are $15; Senior rates are $13; students 18 and over (with current valid student identification) are admitted for $6. Youth aged 6-17 are admitted for $4 and children 5 and under are admitted free. This summer will also see the introduction of the $22 “Inside-Outside Tour,” which will include museum admission plus a historic guided tour of Cody upon the charming Cody Trolley. While 2-3 hours will give visitors a fast, general overview of the Center, admission is good for two consecutive days to give visitors as much time as possible to enjoy the vast collections.

For a closer look at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, please see the web site at www.bbhc.org.