Buffalo Bill Cody

The statue Buffalo Bill – The Scout was placed in 1924 to commemorate the town’s most famous resident and de facto founder, Buffalo Bill Cody. The project was initiated by Buffalo Bill Cody’s niece, Mary Jester Allen. A New Yorker, she persuaded heiress and artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to sculpt the piece.

Despite the offer of two existing sites in Cody, Vanderbilt selected and bought the final Cody site. Her first efforts attracted criticism for the type of horse, its pose, and its tack, all of which were regarded as too “eastern.” She then arranged for a horse named “Smokey” from Cody’s TE Ranch to be shipped to New York, along with a cowboy from Cody to pose in the saddle. The statue was dedicated in the presence of an unusual number of dignitaries for such a remote location. It stands on a large stone base, meant to represent nearby Cedar Mountain, which Cody chose as his gravesite. The base is a consciously ironic statement, since Cody was buried, against his wishes, at Lookout Mountain in Colorado. 

Photo by Carol Highsmith

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