Four Corners Furtherance: Buffalo Bill's gravesite

Who's got the stuff that made the Wild West wild?
Who pleases every woman, man, and child?
Who does his best to give the customers a thrill?
Colonel Buffalo Bill!
"Colonel Buffalo Bill," Annie Get Your Gun soundtrack.

In my previous post in this series, I wrote about Scout's Rest Ranch, the longtime home of the Honorable William F. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, or simply, "the Colonel." The afternoon before my visit to the Nebraska landmark, the Marathon Pundit family took the winding drive up Golden, Colorado's Lookout Mountain to pay our respects at the grave of the legendary showman.

Buffalo Bill's death in January, 1917 was treated as if a head of state had passed. Tributes were issued by President Woodrow Wilson, King George V of England, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany--America did not declare war on Germany until April of that year.

Other than his sister, Mary Hannah Decker, who lived in Denver and in whose home Cody died, Buffalo Bill's ties to Colorado were not deep. In fact, it was in Denver where Cody, in 1911, signed a personal services contract with Denver Post co-owner Harry Tammen, "the man who broke my heart," which Cody thought was simply a loan. That "loan" led to the loss of his Wild West show and his becoming a part of the Sells-Floto Circus.

By most accounts, Buffalo wanted to be buried on Cedar Mountain outside of Cody, Wyoming. But Tammen undoubtedly viewed Cody the same way Colonel Tom Parker viewed Elvis Presley after the King's death--mortality should be no hindrance in making a buck from a cultural icon. Tammen and other Denver leaders convinced Cody's wife, Louisa, to bury Buffalo Bill at Lookout.

It's a beautiful site. At 7,581 feet above sea level, it offers a commanding view Denver and the Colorado plains. The great plainsman and the Great Plains. On the west side, the Rockies beckon. The road up Lookout Mountain is popular with cyclists--Colorado is the fittest state in the union. Families drive up the mountain for the view, and if motorists and the bicycle riders learn something about Cody...well, maybe, just maybe, Tammen was serving the memory of Cody well. However, from Mr. and Mrs. Cody's vantage point, the view isn't so good, there are a several cellular and radio towers in front of them. To the left is the Coors Brewery, although Buffalo Bill did like his alcohol.

A couple of elaborate memorials, including a 220 foot high domed structure housing a museum, and a bronze statue financed with coins donated by school children were proposed, but Cody, joined by his wife four years later, are buried under what appears to be white granite stones bonded with cement. The memorials never materialized. The bronze tablet on top of the marker concludes, defensively, "At rest here by his request." The ugliest thing on the mountain is the gravestone, to steal a phrase from Dickens, it's a dismal heap. The prettiest thing on Lookout, besides the views, are the plentiful ponderosa pines.

Cody, Wyoming officials were not pleased with Cody's assigned final resting place, and twice they threatened to exhume the bodies and re-inter them there. Which led local officials to twice cover the coffins in concrete.

Buffalo Bill's foster son, Johnny Baker, opened a gift shop and managed a small museum on top of the mountain, Pahaska, which is still there, although in a new structure. There's a restaurant too, we had buffalo burgers and I bought a Buffalo Bill t-shirt.

Baker's last words to his wife were, "I want you to stay at Pahaska after I'm gone. I want you to keep alive the memory of the Colonel."

The quotations and quite a bit of additional information used in this post come from Robert A. Carter's superb "Buffalo Bill Cody, The Man Behind the Legend," If you want to learn more about Cody, I urge you to buy this book.

Next: Flatlanders learn to drive up mountains.

Related posts:

Four Corners Furtherance: Buffalo Bill's Scout's Rest Ranch

Four Corners Furtherance: My rattlesnake sighting

July 4, 1882: Buffalo Bill Cody and the birth of the rodeo