Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
novels glorifying him, Cody agreed to perform a melodramatic stage show high-
lighting his exploits alongside other legendary figures Wild Bill Hickok and Texas
Jack Omohundro. In July 1876, just weeks after Custer's defeat at the Little Bighorn,
Cody and the Fifth Regiment for whom he was scouting at the time met a band of
Cheyenne warriors. Cody killed and scalped a warrior named Yellow Hair, avenging
Custer's death and securing his place among the country's military heroes of the day.
In 1883, Cody produced his well-known Wild West Show, which would travel
the world for more than three decades, earning him both fame and fortune. Cody be-
came a shrewd businessman, investing in an Arizona mine, hotels in Sheridan and his
namesake Cody, ranching, coal and oil development, film-making, publishing, and
tourism. He used his wealth and reputation to espouse such causes as women's suf-
frage and, eventually, the just treatment of Native Americans.
As a symbol of the burgeoning West, Cody's expertise was relied on by every
U.S. president from Ulysses S. Grant to Woodrow Wilson. He mingled with world-
famous artists and dined with kings. Indeed, Buffalo Bill lived a life quite worthy of
the legends that continue to define the man.
Housed in its own larger building on-site, the
Museum of the West
displays artifacts
from frontier life, including guns, carriages, clothing, and an excavated canoe that might
have been used by Lewis and Clark on their journey west. There is also a graveyard in the
Old Trail Town complex that has the reinterred bodies of many infamous characters of the
Old West, including that of John “Liver Eating” Johnston (frequently spelled Johnson). The
reburial of his body in Old Trail Town was attended by more than 2,000 people including
the actor Robert Redford, who played the famous mountain man in the 1972 movie
Jeremi-
ah Johnson.
Irma Hotel
Naming it after his beloved youngest daughter and calling it “just the sweetest hotel that
ever was,” Buffalo Bill built the stately
Irma Hotel
(1192 Sheridan Ave., 307/587-4221 or
800/745-4762, $68-197) in 1902 with the idea that tourists from around the world could
stay here en route to Yellowstone National Park. The hotel was designed by a well-known
church architect from Nebraska, and some exterior walls are made of local river rock. The
cherrywood bar, one of the most photographed features in town, was built in 1902 as well.
Additions were added in 1929 and 1976-1977.
