Buffalo Bill - The Scout

by Susan Rissi Tregoning

Title

Buffalo Bill - The Scout

Artist

Susan Rissi Tregoning

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

At the end of Sheridan Avenue in Cody, Wyoming, is the statue known as Buffalo Bill-The Scout. This bronze sculpture of a mounted rider pays tribute to Buffalo Bill Cody, the town's founder.

The project was spearheaded by Cody's niece, Mary Jester Allen, who laid the groundwork for what would eventually become the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. A native New Yorker, she convinced heiress and artist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney to create the statue. While Whitney had been given a choice between two existing sites in Cody, she opted to purchase the property it sits on instead.

The story behind Whitney's initial attempts at the sculpture is quite fascinating. Her first version was criticized for being too Eastern in style because it featured the wrong type of horse with inappropriate tack and pose. To correct the problem, she had a horse from Buffalo Bill's TE Ranch shipped to New York, and a cowboy from Cody served as the model.

Dedicated on July 4, 1924, the statue stands on a large stone base meant to symbolize Cedar Mountain, which is now better known as Spirit Mountain—Buffalo Bill's chosen burial site—an ironic decision since he died on January 10, 1917, while visiting his sister in Denver, Colorado, where he was buried on Lookout Mountain against his wishes. Vanderbilt covered most of the estimated $50,000 cost for this memorial; her son Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney later founded the Whitney Museum of Western Art—one of the five museums within the Buffalo Bill Center of the West

This statue, a significant piece of Western American history, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Copyright 2024 Susan Rissi Tregoning

Uploaded

September 30th, 2024

Colors

Embed

Share

Tags