Qualla: Cody, Wyoming

Cody, Wyoming: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Oona Wikiwalker, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1894, William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody stood atop the Bighorn Mountains with his son-in-law, gazing west over the Bighorn Basin for the first time. The legendary showman who had already built a career as a Pony Express rider, Army scout, and Wild West entertainer saw something unexpected in that vast, empty landscape: potential. Not for spectacle, but for permanence. Two years later, he and six partners would lay out the streets of a new town named in his honor, one designed with wide boulevards and high liquor license fees to keep the rough frontier element at bay.

Read more: Cody, Wyoming on Qualla

Image: Oona Wikiwalker | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cody, Wyoming: Water in the Desert

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CAJC: in the PNW from somewhere on the foggy PNW, USA, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. What drew Buffalo Bill to the Bighorn Basin was not gold or silver, but water. Sheridan businessmen George Beck and Horace Alger had purchased water rights to irrigate land along the Shoshone River, and after State Engineer Elwood Mead surveyed the area in 1894, they formed the S...

Read more: Cody, Wyoming on Qualla

Image: CAJC: in the PNW from somewhere on the foggy PNW, USA, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Cody, Wyoming: Gateway to Wonderland

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Richie Diesterheft from Chicago, IL, USA, CC BY 2.0. Cody understood something essential about the town's location: it sat just 50 miles from the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park. The same tourists who flocked to his Wild West shows would pay to experience the real West on their way to the geysers and hot springs. The town be...

Read more: Cody, Wyoming on Qualla

Image: Richie Diesterheft from Chicago, IL, USA | CC BY 2.0

Cody, Wyoming: Five Museums Under One Roof

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cityofcody, CC0. Weeks after Buffalo Bill died on January 10, 1917, his friends formed the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association. That organization has grown into the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a complex of five museums affiliated with the Smithsonian since 2008. The original Buffalo Bill Museu...

Read more: Cody, Wyoming on Qualla

Image: Cityofcody | CC0

Cody, Wyoming: Local Legends

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Xerim, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cody has produced an unexpected range of notable figures. Jackson Pollock, the abstract expressionist painter who revolutionized American art, was born here in 1912. Former Wyoming Governor and U.S. Senator Milward Simpson called Cody home, as did western artist Frank Tenney John...

Read more: Cody, Wyoming on Qualla

Image: Xerim | CC BY-SA 4.0