Cody, WY - Buffalo Bill Center

Buffalo Bill Center of the West

I’m sure many of you have been to this marvelous museum - or, should I say, this conglomeration of 5 museums: The Buffalo Bill Museum, The Plains Indian Museum, The Whitney Western Art Museum, The Cody Firearms Museum, and the Draper Natural History Museum. 5 marvelous museums in one. Luckily, you can take two days to visit since it is so big. We arrived right before noon since we had spent the morning at the Dam and breakfast. But, we knew we had tomorrow. Being the history student, we first wandered through the Buffalo Bill Museum, relating his history. I suppose I knew the outline of his life story but not in any depth. There was a lot here that surprised me:

        He was the oldest male member of his household so, when his father died when he was 11, he went off to find some work and joined the freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell as a cattle drover and teamster, crossing the Great Plains several times. At 11? A paying job, away from his family? I was still playing hopscotch and wearing braids. But then, maybe, at the age of 14 he went on to work for the Pony Express, and maybe not. I’ve read some places where he worked for the Pony Express and other places say this is an unproven part of the Buffalo Bill legend. He also got his nickname of ‘Buffalo Bill’ when he worked 18 months for the railroad killing buffalo to feed the workers. He says that he killed approximately 4280 buffalo (actually he was killing bison, not buffalo but ‘Bison Bill’ isn’t as colorful.) Here the legend began and soon it would grow.

Ned Buntline, a dime novelist, really began the legend, he saw a good story and ran with it. But, Buffalo Bill let him run. Over the 4 decades beginning in 1869 when the first Buffalo Bill story appeared, over 700 Buffalo Bill stories and novels appeared.

He was the hero of more fictional stories than any other American character. Then Buntline created a drama for Buffalo Bill to star in and, though the critics thoroughly panned his performance, ‘good looking fellow, tall and straight as an arrow, but ridiculous as an actor’ it didn’t matter, he was off and running. Soon he developed his own show which grew in to the ‘cast of thousands’ Wild West Show which played around the world and starred in the Golden Jubilee for Queen Victoria in 1887 in England.

‘I determined to give the people of the East some idea of the West and the doings here. I wanted them to see some real cowboys and buffaloes and horses. To see a lariat cast by one that knew how to do it. And so I got up the ‘Wild West’ combination.’

                                                               William F. Cody, The Denver Tribune, 11/15/1883

                                                

Most of that outline I knew but I found out some other facts that I did not know. He was the reason that many people regard the ‘cowboy’ as a real American icon. Prior to Buffalo Bill, he was regarded as a drunk, a gambler, a gunfighter and a womanizer especially after a cattle drive. But, after Buffalo Bill cleaned up this image, the cowboy became an American icon and paved the way for such well-known clean-cut cowboys as Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, the Cartwrights and all the western shows that we all watched as kids.

His reputation is as an Indian Fighter but that is not true. He regarded the American Indian as a true American and, in posters for his Wild West Show, called them the ‘Americans.’ He hired many, even Sitting Bull, to be in his shows and gave them a chance to represent their way of life for all his audience to see. Buffalo Bill stated in 1885 that

‘The defeat of Custer was not a massacre. The Indians were being pursued by skilled fighters with orders to kill. For centuries they had been hounded from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. They had their wives and little ones to protect and they were fighting for their existence.’

‘Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government.’

(The Indians) have been badly used. They have their side of the story. For honesty and virtue, I think the Indians are ahead of the whites. Where is the white man who would not fight if everything were taken away from him? I’m dog-goned if I wouldn’t. They were here first, and have a better right to be her than we have.’

                                                William F. Cody, interview, Milwaukee Sentinel, 9/2/1880

Here’s a poster for his Wild West Show - note that a Native American is featured and at the bottom he’s called ‘An American.’

Oh, yeah, and he treated women as equals. He even paid them equally with the men for equal work. Obviously ahead of his time. Of course, some of his women stars were better with a gun than his male stars. Annie Oakley is an example of this.

‘What we want to do is give women even more liberty than they have. Let them do any kind of work they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay.’

                                                                        William F. Cody

He was instrumental in the founding of the city of Cody, WY and lobbied for the Burlington Northern RR to come to Cody. With the coming of the railroad, he saw tourists flocking to Cody and then into Yellowstone. He then built a hotel in Cody, named the Irma, after one of his daughters and lobbied also for automobile traffic in the National Parks, especially Yellowstone. He then built two other smaller hotels on the way from Cody into the park.

Here is a picture of campers and other visitors to Yellowstone waiting in line at the park’s east entrance gate 8/15/1916. Now, there were rules for these cars: you couldn’t exceed 12 mph when climbing and 10 mph when descending steep grades, if you were driving one of Yellowstone’s few ‘good roads with straight stretches’ you cold speed along at 20 mph as long as ‘no horse team was nearer than 200 yds.’ Of course, motorists could interpret ‘good’ and ‘straight stretches’ as they wished. Cody himself planned to drive the first car into Yellowstone but he was performing at the time and couldn’t. In 1915, 958 cars carried 3513 people into Yellowstone. Today, some 1,000,000 cars carry 3,000,000 annually into Yellowstone.

He toured the world, over the 30-yr history of his shows he probably traveled the distance of earth to the moon, 250,000 miles. He performed in Algona, Emmetsburg and Fort Dodge, the towns of my youth. He hired skilled horsemen from a variety of cultures: cossacks from Russia, Turks, Gauchos, Mongols, Arabs, Georgians, all of whom were given a chance to display their skills. Here’s a picture of his troupe with an emphasis on some of these groups. In the picture below you can see Native Americans, Cossacks, Arabs, American cavalry men, women and many others.

In November 1902, Cody opened the Irma Hotel, which he named after his daughter. He envisioned that a growing number of tourists coming to Cody via the recently opened Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up the Cody Road along the North Fork of the Shoshone River to visit Yellowstone Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed construction of the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Teepee.

Did he die famous? Yes. Did he die rich, as he always wanted to be? Nope. He died a pauper. He pursued riches all his life but he spent too much, invested too poorly and died poor.

However, whether fact or fiction, we can’t ignore his contributions to the West. And, just as people flocked to his Wild West Shows, they flock to Cody, WY to visit the museum named in his honor.

And, what a museum it is. One section is devoted to his life and story.

We also visited the Whitney Western Art Museum and saw some marvelous paintings. I even got to see an original Thomas Moran which I had heard about when we visited Yellowstone.

There was also many sculptures in the grounds of the museum.

The Plains Indian Museum presented the lives of the Plains Indians, the tribes that stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. There was lots about their life before the white man came with several teepees showing how they lived, this diorama comparing moving with their traditional dog and then with a horse. Since a horse was bigger and stronger, they could now have bigger homes with taller lodgepoles, they could move much faster, could carry much more and could move much further.

And, of course, they showed how the Native American was treated when the white man moved in. The attempt was to make the Indian like the white man: wear the same clothing, the same haircuts and live in the same homes and farm the same way. disastrous results.

We sure did learn a lot a see a lot in the museums here. The art was wondrous but I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad about how the life of Buffalo Bill ended. He had such an impact on America socially, historically and politically and economically but died penniless and feeling a failure. And the treatment of the Native Americans is always a sad part of our history.

Cody, WY - Beartooth Hwy

Serendipity today. When we were in Yellowstone, we realized that we just would not have time to drive the Beartooth Highway and we postponed it to when we were in Cody. Today, we’re in Cody and drove the Beartooth Hwy BUT also, because we were in Cody, we made a loop and took the Chief Joseph Hwy back to Cody. What luck. Had we driven the Beartooth from Yellowstone we would not have driven the Chief Joseph and it was by far the most beautiful of the two roads. Sometimes, we’re just lucky.

‘The most beautiful roadway in America.’

                                                                                                Charles Kurault

That is how Charles Kurault described the Beartooth. If only I could say that the photo below was my picture - it is not, it is from the Red Lodge, MT website but I wanted to use it because it shows how the Beartooth snakes up the mountainside and curls in on itself several times.

I’ve heard about the Beartooth highway for years and always planned to drive it but never knew the history of its being built. Why would someone want to build a highway as difficult as this through terrain as mountainous as this? Well, how about those mine owners in Cooke City and Red Lodge who wanted to move their ores through Yellowstone to market on the west coast? And how about those tourists who wanted to get into Yellowstone to visit? And how about those Montana and Wyoming politicians who wanted the road through their states and the federal money to pay their workers to build it? Hmmm.

Probably, moving ores through Yellowstone is a non-starter but, with the advent of the car, tourists wanted a convenient way to get into the park and a road through the Beartooth would be it. All projects this large need a visionary, someone who sees the future, how to get there and is persistent. In this case it was J.C.F. ‘Doc’ Siegfriedt who moved the project along. He lobbied the US Congress for 6 years, from 1925 - 1931, supported by the people of Red Lodge who ponied up $2500 every one of those 6 years to send him to Washington. It was the Depression, one of the two mines in Red Lodge had gone broke but they still found the money to get him to Washington to lobby. Each year he went and each year he convinced another Congressman. Finally in 1931, President Hoover signed the Park Approach Act and the road was started in 1931. Other approaches to other parks were included in this bill but only the Beartooth Highway was started in this time frame.

Difficult to build? Heck, yes. The terrain was horrendous, the construction season was short, the weather was harsh, it was the beginning of the depression but they got it done on time and within budget. Steep slopes, long drop-offs, hard granite mountains all had to be overcome and the construction engineers designed it extrordinarily well and the workers worked hard - with only one death. The highway was officially opened on June 14, 1936 and a caravan of cars took their turn curving the road and marveling at its beauty.

The workers had a great time naming some of the points of interest: ‘Primal Point’, ‘Lunch Meadow’, ‘High Lonesome Ridge’, ‘Grizzly Knob’, ‘Frozen Man’s Curve’, and finally - ‘Mae West Curve’, a curve that doubles back on itself. I kept looking for signs pointing out these points but these names have been lost in the ensuing years.

The Beartooth is a thrilling curvy ride to the top of the Beartooth Mts, starting in the dry desert landscape of northern Wyoming and ending in the alpine tundra in Montana at the top. Somehow about 50 million years ago, this rock heaved itself upwards and then an enormous glacier melted, retreated and carved the canyons into beautiful U-shaped valleys. Got that? heaving, melting, retreating and carving - geologists are marvelous, able to read the rocks to tell all of this. I look at a rock and can tell immediately: this is hard. That’s about as far as I go.

We started in Cody drove north to Belfry, turned west on rte 308 and drove by an old abandoned mine. But it was not abandoned because the vein ran out - no, it was abandoned because there was a horrific disaster and 74 men died, fifty-eight women lost their husbands and 125 children became fatherless, including six of eight students in the senior class at Bearcreek High School.

‘Good-bye wives and daughters. We died an easy death. Love from both of us. Be good.’

                        Walter & Johnny

It was a sunny Saturday morning, February 27, 1943 and only a short shift was working in the Smith mine between Belfry and Red Lodge, MT, two towns built on coal mining. 77 men entered the mine, only 3, those near the entrance, would come out alive. They did not even hear the explosion, all they knew was that debris was flying out at them and they were blown over from the wind coming from deep in the mine. The rescue went on for two days as body after body was brought out of the mine. 8 days later the final body was brought up to the surface.

Ore was extremely profitable in this neck of the woods in the early part of this century. There were coal mines all over these hills. One of them, the Smith mine, spent thousands electrifying and mechanizing their mine but very little on safety equipment for the miners. In fact, they were still using open flame carbide headlamps even after safer electrical lamps had been invented. Ventilation? Rock dusting equipment to keep the mines free of dust? Nope, none of that. And, guess what, after they closed this mine because of the deaths, they kept their other mines opened and earned a record profit. And, of course, we still hear stories of men trapped in mines, stories of a lack of safety equipment and stories of familes left fatherless.

When we hit Red Lodge, we stopped for a soda in the local grocery, read the local signs written by someone with a wry sense of humor.

and then headed towards the Beartooth Mountains. Nice drive alongside the river but then the valley opens and we see the Beartooth Range looming ahead of us.

We climbed and climbed upward in tight switchbacks until we reached the Vista Point Scenic Overlook (with bathrooms - if you can believe that - obviously this road was built for tourists) and stopped to look out over the road we had just climbed.

Can you think of a more wondrous spot for lunch?

Further up, the trees end and an alpine tundra takes over: just grasses, small wild-flowers and rocks. and the views all the way up are marvelous. We stopped at the top (near the skiing tow rope - yep, there is a tow bar at the top - you drive to the top if the road is open, park and ski straight down, then take the tow rope up for another run.) At the top we had lunch in the sun and alpine wildflowers. We had climbed up to 10,947’, the highest elevation in any road in Montana and Wyoming and the highest elevation road in the Northern Rockies. Was I having trouble breathing? You bet, it’s a ‘breathtaking’ drive but every minute or so I had to take a deep breath to catch up. Then, of course, you get to wind your way back down the Beartooth, with every turn bringing another breathtaking view. Hey, we even saw the ‘beartooth’ that the range is named for. That tiny pointy thing between the looming mountains.

We also saw two singular peaks: Index and Pilot. Jagged and what a pair, indicative of the jagged Beartooth Range.

On the way down is a fire lookout with the ‘Welcome’ sign out and we drove up the dirt road to the top. It is a climb in itself but we saw the most marvelous wildflower fields possible. Beautiful. At the top we looked through the small museum devoted to telling about fire fighters in this area.

Then we talked with the couple who is volunteering for this 2-week span of living in the tower and looking for fires. Anyone can volunteer, the tours of duty are 2 weeks unless you want more and there is a comfy little space for you to live in the look-out tower. You work 5 days on, get 2 days off, work 5 days and then you can leave for the next people who volunteer. I’m still trying to convince Gary that this might be a fun thing to do. He’s not so convinced.

While we were in the tower, another group of 3 came up - from Ottumwa, IA. 5 visitors in the tower and we’re all from Iowa - and, the 6th person in the tower, the volunteer, had ridden Ragbrai. Wow.

On the way down, we found these two guys hitching down the hill. Calvin and Tom had been backpacking and camping for the last 4 days - all of them rainy. Were they glum? Not a chance. They had had a great time out in the wet woods and were still smiling - though everything they had was wet and muddy and so were they. They had come from Red Lodge and had been in the Beartooth Wilderness for the last 4 nights. We decided to give them a ride and, luckily they had a tarp they could put over our stuff and under theirs. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we didn’t just want to drop them off there so we drove back to the Top of the World convenience store/gas station/bathroom/bakery/book store etc.

Here they could us the bathrooms and probably find a ride back to Red Lodge. Look at the boots off to the right - Tom changed into his camp sandals before he got into the car. He must have known how prissy I was.

We then turned back, drove by the Lookout tower road again and wound our way down the road towards the Chief Joseph Highway which would take us back to Cody. But, I’m thinking another picture or two of the sights along the Beartooth wouldn’t hurt.

Those white spots above the mountains are not clouds but mountains in the next range. We did not have a sunny day for most of our trip over the Beartooth. I would have like the sun for the pictures but the haze and clouds resulted in some other views.

Finally, we reached our turnoff on the of the Beartooth, turned south onto the Chief Joseph Scenic Drive back towards Cody. Little did we know what a marvelous drive it would be and how stunningly beautiful it would turn out to be. The Beartooth is a thrill ride to the top of the Beartooth Range but what the Chief Joseph lacks in height, it more than makes up for in beauty.