History of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center

Mary Jester Allen had a dream. After her famous uncle died in 1917, she envisioned a great national shrine and memorial to both William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the early pioneers of the American West. In 1927, she began her quest as curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum, a modest log building in remote Cody, Wyoming, mimicking Buffalo Bill's TE Ranch house, on the Southfork of the Shoshone River. The story of the evolution from a 50'x 70' log Buffalo Bill Museum to the monumental Buffalo Bill Historical Center - six football fields in area - is fascinating and inspiring. It is a tale of vision, perseverance, and dedication, Eastern and local support, creativity and continuity. Today's Center encompasses five museums, a research library, a professionally developed Web site, and a vibrant, growing educational outreach program.

History of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association and the Buffalo Bill Historical Center

William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody loved the limelight, high drama and adventure, travel and change, challenge and complexity. He became a world-renowned showman, depicting the American West in staged events that riveted attention and captured hearts worldwide. The genesis and development of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center has, historically, placed him at center stage. Without question, were it not for his life and fame, this institution would never have come into being.

The first seeds of an idea for a memorial to Buffalo Bill were planted in early 1917, shortly after he died. However, it would take seven more years for a bronze monument to be conceived and dedicated (1924) in his hometown of Cody, Wyoming, and 10 more years for construction of the Buffalo Bill Museum (1927). [The Buffalo Bill Museum was the first, lone museum of what was to become the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC)]. This delay was due, undoubtedly, to the entrance of the U.S. into World War I, in 1917 (the year Cody died), which changed the town's and the country's focus, for a time.

Once built, however, the Buffalo Bill Museum served as a memorial, alongside Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's enchanting bronze monument, titled Buffalo Bill - The Scout, for more than 30 years before a second museum was erected. These entities and other later developments owe their origins and continued vitality to William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and to those who fought to keep his memory alive throughout the years. Historically entwined with the town of Cody are the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, the original Buffalo Bill Museum, and, now, the massive complex of five museums and a research library that form the modern Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

Born in 1846, in Scott County, Iowa, Buffalo Bill was an icon in the history of the American West. His Wild West shows became known throughout the world and his zest for exploring and adventuring led him to experiences as a bullwhacker, a mounted messenger, a trapper, a prospector for gold, and a Pony Express rider - all by the age of 15. He also served 18 months in the Civil War as a scout for the 7th Kansas Cavalry. After the war, Cody briefly operated a hotel, drove a stage, and hunted buffalo for the railroad. His abilities as a buffalo hunter earned him the nickname "Buffalo Bill" in 1867. After this stint as a buffalo hunter, he became a renowned prairie scout, earning him a Medal of Honor in 1872.

In 1883, Cody created Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, propelling him to even greater fame and fortune. He was instrumental in settling the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming. In 1896, he and six other men founded the town of Cody (See our complete online biography of Buffalo Bill, with a chronology of his life.)

Cody died on January 10, 1917. The town of Cody's "collective desire to commemorate Buffalo Bill" resulted in a meeting on the front porch of the Irma Hotel to discuss a way to honor the town's founder. Margaret L. Simpson [grandmother of the Honorable Alan K. Simpson, a young Cody matron in 1917, along with L.L. Newton, Charles Hayden, W.T. Hogg, and Sam Parks, considered establishing a park, especially one in which children could play, as a living memorial to Buffalo Bill. This informal association of five people resulted in the formal chartering of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association on March 1, 1917 - just seven weeks after Cody died. (1)

Among the "objects and purposes" of the Memorial Association were listed the desire "to establish and maintain a historical society for the preservation of the history and antiquities of the Country, the Town of Cody, the County of Park and the State of Wyoming," and "to build, construct and maintain an historical monument or memorial statue in honor of and to perpetuate the memory of our late lamented fellow townsman Hon. William F. Cody (Buffalo Bill)." (2)

The Wyoming Legislature had appropriated $5,000 during its 1917 Legislative Session, and only about a month later, the Certificate of Incorporation for the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association was signed. The $5,000 was "...to be used in connection with such contributions as may be made to the fund hereby appropriated for the purpose of obtaining designs for and erecting a fit and proper memorial statue of William F. Cody deceased, to be erected at or near the town of Cody." The town's memorializing and grief would soon turn to anger and shock, however, when it was immediately announced that Buffalo Bill was to be buried on top of Lookout Mountain, west of Denver, with the burial not taking place until the following summer. Cody residents were not prepared to do battle, and sat by, helplessly, as the remains of their town's founder were interred 500 miles away. A general belief that Buffalo Bill wished to be buried on top of Cedar Mountain, overlooking Cody, stems from his will of 1906 that clearly stated this. However, a later will, dated 1913, failed to address burial arrangements. In the fall of 1916, Cody led a party atop Cedar Mountain and, according to Vern Spencer (one member of this group), he "...chose the spot on which he wished to be buried, near the town he loved and the country he loved." (3)

Cody had become ill, and died (January 10, 1917), while visiting his sister May (Mary Hannah Cody Decker), in Denver. His wife, Louisa ("Lulu") went there to retrieve the body and to bring Cody's remains back to Cody, Wyoming. However, a rumor has long persisted that the publisher of The Denver Post (Harry Tammen) and other powerful Denverites, such as Frederick Bonfils, persuaded her to bury her husband, instead, on Lookout Mountain, offering her a rather large sum of money to do so. (However, no concrete proof of this has ever surfaced, and it remains speculative.) It is known that Tammen gave Buffalo Bill a $10,000 funeral - a rather expensive cortege for that day (and not something that Cody, Wyoming could afford). In the final pages of Louisa's memoirs, she wrote that although, long ago, her husband had told her he wanted to be buried on Cedar Mountain near Cody, "...where the last rays of the sun touched the hills at night," now, in his last days on earth, he had changed his mind and wanted to be buried on Lookout Mountain. "It's pretty up there... You can look down into four states," he was purported to have said. In 1921, when Louisa died, she was buried at Lookout Mountain, with her husband, under nearly 20 tons of cement, reinforced by steel rails. (4)

While the town of Cody had lost the physical remains of its namesake, however, it possessed numerous reminders of Buffalo Bill - the Irma Hotel, Cody's children and grandchildren, his TE Ranch (far up the Southfork), and his old hunting lodge, Pahaska Teepee, on the Northfork of the Shoshone River. The town also possessed the $5,000 appropriation from the state to erect a monument to Buffalo Bill. (5) Unfortunately, Cody had died just as the United States was entering World War I, and the $5,000 languished, for several years. Eventually, Buffalo Bill's niece, Mary Jester Allen, became the catalyst for resurrecting the town's desire to commemorate her beloved uncle. She was described as "...gray-haired, steely-eyed, of considerable dignity, an imposing air of authority and dogged determination." Her residency in New York City for about nine years, from ca. 1917 until 1926, gave her the opportunity to establish Eastern connections and gain experience in journalism and public relations. She was also active, during that period, in the Women's Roosevelt Memorial Association, displaying her interest in a museum that memorialized a national figure. Through channels established while she lived in New York, Mrs. Allen managed to involve Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875-1942), the renowned patron of American art, a sculptress, and daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Whitney would sculpt the monumental bronze, Buffalo Bill - The Scout. (6)

In the early 1920s, the proposed bronze statue of Buffalo Bill on horseback, its plinth (base), land, shipment from Whitney's Long Island studio, erection at the site, and value of the artist's time and genus, all added up to an estimated $250,000. Although Mrs. Whitney was well aware that the tiny town of Cody (1,500 population) would not be able to raise this amount, she proceeded with her plans to sculpt the equestrian monument. However, she did not approve of the two lots purchased by the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, so she bought forty additional acres, with her own funds, adjoining these lots. (This land now includes the site of both the statue and the present-day Buffalo Bill Historical Center.) She and her friends organized the Buffalo Bill American Association - just for the purpose of seeing the statue project to completion. "Its promotional slant was old-fashioned American patriotism: mother, home and apple pie, the pioneer qualities of courage, responsibility, audacity, loyalty and cooperation." On April 3, 1924, the kickoff national fundraising dinner was held at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City. Two months later, photographs of Mrs. Whitney's first statue were being displayed in Cody, Wyoming. Unfortunately, as it turned out, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney paid for the entire project (the actual cost was well over $50,000) out of her own pocket, when donations - just to cover expenses - were not forthcoming. However, this did not dishearten her from creating one of her finest works of art, despite controversy surrounding its design elements. Her vision was to sculpt Cody at about age 30, mounted on a typical western horse, with a plinth of natural pink granite. The monument was "to stand... west of town facing the sun-down slope." The statue would be somewhat larger than life-size and ready for dedication by July 4, 1924. Dedication ceremonies drew an uncountable 5,000-10,000 people. Ironically, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney did not attend, having sailed for Europe a week earlier on June 28. (7)

During the fall of 1925, the International Cody Family Association was formed at the Drake Hotel in Chicago - initiated by Mary Jester Allen. It was at this organizational meeting that she made her proposal for a Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum and appealed for "family relics." The new association also discussed plans to have Buffalo Bill exhumed and reburied in Cody. Mrs. Allen was described as "chairman and an enthusiastic promoter of a plan to gather, in the old homestead in Cody, Wyoming, all possible relics of the famous frontiersman, which will tell his history and likewise that of the period when he became famous." Mrs. Allen may have been the only family member who wanted to locate the museum in Cody. During the following year, she and a small family committee traveled to a number of cities searching for the museum's ideal site. As early as January 1924, seven months prior to the dedication of the bronze Whitney monument, Buffalo Bill - The Scout, Mary Jester Allen had proposed that a museum be built on land purchased with $5,000 in state funds for a Buffalo Bill Memorial. However, it took an entire year for her to convince her own family that Cody would be the ideal place for a museum. Why Mrs. Allen wanted this museum in Cody, Wyoming may have involved more sentiment than financial considerations or practicality. It may also have included Mary Jester Allen's desire to live in Cody's favorably dry, clear climate, in a relaxed small town atmosphere, and to preside over a smaller museum, involving less stress and minimal management. (8)

And so it was that on October 4, 1926, the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association executed the warranty deed for the lots to the Cody Family Memorial Board. The north 150 feet of this tract was for the grantee to "erect thereon a memorial in a form of a museum to William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, on or before the first day of January, 1928: that said land will not be used for any other purpose excepting for the erection and maintenance thereupon of such museum and not for any commercial purpose whatsoever." (9)

The Buffalo Bill Museum's first home, a log structure at 836 Sheridan Avenue, began to take form early in 1927, a prosperous year in America. Planned as "an exact replica in design" of Buffalo Bill's TE Ranch house, except for the fact that its dimensions were considerably larger (50' x 70'), it blended in well with the town's rustic atmosphere and was typical of Western architectural design. It had seven large rooms, two halls, two public lavatories, three closets, a scrub room, two big stone fireplaces, two smaller fireplaces, and two porches. Dedicated on July 4, a duplicate of Buffalo Bill's living room, "faithful in every detail," was ready when the museum's doors opened to the public during that summer of 1927. It was a "homey memorial, welcoming friends and guests." The new structure contained Mary Jester Allen's own collection of Buffalo Bill memorabilia, much of it inherited from her mother, Helen, Buffalo Bill's third sister. Within just a few years, the museum was bulging with "...too many riches for its display space... ." (10)

By 1949, the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association had taken on new life, after World War II, and was investigating every possibility for museum expansion. Its board had created a national planning board to guide future development of BBMA land, both east and west of Sheridan Avenue. Their vision was for a great national shrine and memorial to Buffalo Bill and the early pioneers of the West. This was Mary Jester Allen's goal, all along - to expand the little museum toward a great national center. Cody Attorney Ernest J. Goppert, Sr. had taken on a pivotal role in the BBMA, having served as vice-president during 1939 and 1940, then, after the war, as president of the board of trustees, beginning in 1946. His influence would forge a new and vibrant path for the organization for 28 years, when he stepped down in 1974. (11)

Chairman of the planning committee in 1950 was Stan Kershaw, who jotted down "Some Notes on Planning for Expansion." The committee's concept was for "an education shrine dedicated to the memory of Buffalo Bill and presenting for the benefit of the public… the history and development of… the 'Old West.' The fields of knowledge would include western American arts and crafts, geology, agriculture, stock raising, literature, drama and music, Indian lore, transportation, flora and fauna, and all that the study of history implied. And for the first time, he mentioned the name of the institution: BUFFALO BILL HISTORICAL CENTER." (12)

What finally propelled this idealistic concept toward concrete and mortar was a $250,000 gift from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney's son, Sonny Whitney, in 1955, for "construction of an art center in Cody." The New York Times reported, "the board is considering plans for a new fireproof display building, a gallery of Western art, a geological and an American history building." Bolstered by the Whitney endowment, the BBMA Board of Trustees began the planning process for the anchoring structure of the present Buffalo Bill Historical Center - the Whitney Gallery of Western Art - completed in 1958, southwest (and in view) of the old log museum. (Today, the Cody Country Chamber of Commerce and the Cody Country Art League occupy the original Buffalo Bill Museum building.) (13)

Mary Jester Allen faithfully served the Buffalo Bill Museum for over 34 years (1927-60), as its first director, and, at the beginning, as guide, guard, curator, registrar, secretary, accountant, and custodian. During this period, Mrs. Allen witnessed the fulfillment of many of her dreams for the museum as a great pioneer historical center in Cody, and she provided an unbroken thread of continuity and dedication until her death in August 1960 at the age of 85. As her dream unfolded, however, she may, at times, have felt "pushed aside" by growth and expansion. After all, it was her museum. But, it could safely be said that without her, the Buffalo Bill Museum, and now, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center would never have existed at all. Her cosmopolitan outlook and connections with the Eastern establishment gave impetus to many phases of museum development. These critical networks drove a small log building, that once housed early museum collections, into the future, now within a 300,000-square-foot multiple-museum and library complex - the size of eight football fields. (14)

The present-day Buffalo Bill Museum, established in 1927 (now at its new location at 720 Sheridan Avenue), contains a wealth of material relating to the life of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody and the pioneer culture of the Western frontier. The exhibition in the museum serves two purposes: to examine the personal and public lives of Buffalo Bill, and to interpret his story in the context of the history and myth of the American West. (15)

The Whitney Gallery of Western Art, established in 1958, now contains expanded collections of masterworks of the American West. Original paintings, sculpture and prints trace artistic interpretations of the West from the early 19th century through present. Highlights include documentary art by George Catlin and A.J. Miller, landscapes by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, and the classic West of Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, N.C. Wyeth and W.H.D. Koerner. The collection continues with an array of contemporary art in the Kriendler Gallery, located on the Mezzanine Level of the Orientation Gallery. (16)

The Plains Indian Museum, originally established in 1969, was rededicated in its own wing in 1979. In June of 2000, the museum completed a reinterpretation to create, in the words of Crow elder and historian Joe Medicine Crow, "a living breathing place where more than just Indian objects are on display." The Plains Indian Museum has one of the country's largest and finest collections of Plains Indian art and artifacts. The new gallery presentation, through exhibitions and interpretive audiovisual programs, tells the stories of Plains Indian people - their cultural backgrounds, traditions, values, and histories, as well as the context of their lives today. (17)

The Cody Firearms Museum, dedicated in Cody as the Winchester Arms Museum in 1976, was rededicated in 1991 in a new wing as the Cody Firearms Museum. It houses the world's largest and most important assemblage of American arms, as well as European arms dating back to the 16th century. More than 5,000 firearms in the collection chronicle the development of firearms from the 16th century to the present, documenting the influence of firearms on the settlement of the United States and the fundamental contributions of the firearms industry to the industrial revolution. (18)

The McCracken Research Library, established in 1980, is a specialized library and archives, with a catalogue of materials accessible within this BBHC Web site. Holdings include manuscripts, archives, and photographs, as well as printed and electronic resources. The library is a participating OCLC library, and a member of the WYLD Library Network. Major collections are Buffalo Bill's Wild West, Western art and artists, Plains Indian history and culture, firearms history and technology, the natural history of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the history of Yellowstone National Park, Western folk music, and Cody local history. (19)

An integral unit of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Draper Museum of Natural History - opening to great acclaim in June 2002 - creates, accumulates, and disseminates knowledge about the natural environment and human cultures of the American West, focusing on the Greater Yellowstone region.

How has an internationally recognized historical center blossomed in such a dusty little Western town like Cody, Wyoming? William H. Hornby, Senior Editor of The Denver Post (1990-92), answered: "Love of the West, freely given by the white and Indian, country lawyer and New York tycoon, artist and scientist, salesmen and scholar, toddler and senior, American and foreigner..." This appreciation for Western culture, the visitor draw of the Greater Yellowstone Region, and, the mystique and love of Buffalo Bill himself, have all combined with sound local leadership, money and sweat, persistence and compromise, vision and creativity, to grow a world-class museum complex in the wild and colorful landscapes of the Northern Rocky Mountains. From $5,000 in 1917 to $50 million plus in assets today - Mary Jester Allen would be proud. (21)

ENDNOTES

(1) Bartlett, Richard A. From Cody to the World: The First Seventy-Five Years of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association. Cody, Wyoming: The Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 1992, pp. 23, 24.
(2) Ibid., p. 25.
(3) Ibid., pp. 22, 23.
(4) Ibid., p. 22; Yost, Nellie Snyder. Buffalo Bill: His Family, Friends, Fame, Failures, and Fortunes. Chicago: The Swallow Press Inc., 1980, p. 403; Russell, Don. The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960, p. 469.
(5) Ibid., p. 22.
(6) Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was born into immense wealth, but at age 18 she lamented, "I longed to be someone else, to be liked only for oneself, to live quietly and happily, without the burden that goes with riches." She began sculpting at age twenty-five, after marrying Harry Payne Whitney, and studied at the Art Students League with James Earle Fraser and Hendrik Anderson. She also worked in Paris with Andrew O'Connor and Auguste Rodin. In 1931, she founded the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. When she died in 1942, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was one of the richest women in America, leaving $78 million, the largest estate of all fourth-generation Vanderbilts. (Ibid., p. 25; AskArt: The Artists Bluebook, October 8, 2001)
(7) Bartlett, Richard A. From Cody to the World: The First Seventy-Five Years of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, pp. 44, 45, 55.
(8) Ibid., pp. 59-61.
(9) Ibid., p. 63.
(10) Ibid., p. 68, 69.
(11) Ibid, pp. 111, 112, 118, 119.
(12) Ibid., p. 120.
(13) Ibid., p. 121, 122.
(14) Ibid., p. 75, 105, 106.
(15) Visitor's Guide, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming, 2001.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Ibid.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Ibid.
(21) Bartlett, Richard A. From Cody to the World: The First Seventy-Five Years of the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association, pp. 216-218.