Buffalo Bill Center of the West

Museums aren't what they used to be.  Here is an example of when nature and art unite.

This dude is gritting his teeth because there just happens to be a bear on his back!

The museum carries folks from wildlife that was here before even the Indians up through the end of Buffalo Bill Cody's life.  Cody was the real deal.  He really was an Indian scout - and a superior one at that. General Philip Sheridan name him chief of scouts for the entire Fifth Cavalry, praising his tracking skills and knowledge of western lands even though there were no maps to be had.  In 1872, Cody even received the Congressional Medal of Honor for the bravery he showed after the Third Cavalry was ambushed by Sioux Indians.

In 1893, Cody bought a printing press and set his sister and her husband up in the newspaper business in Duluth, Minnesota.  The paper folded in 1896 and Cody subsequently shipped the press to Wyoming so that he and a friend could establish the Cody Enterprise.  That newspaper is still being published to this day, and you will find the original printing press in this museum!

What would a wild west museum be with out an extensive (VERY EXTENSIVE) collection of guns!

They even have James Arness' (Marshall Matt Dillon) Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army Revolver, Paladin's from the TV series Have Gun, Will Travel, the pistols of the entire cast of Bonanza, Gene Barry's from Bat Masterson, as well as Audie Murphy's 1905 Bisley Revolver.

Seriously, the number of old west firearms is astonishing.  I thought I never would get Granpa out of there!  However, because he was lollygaggin' (as we say in Texas), I was sitting in the main area waiting ever so patiently, and I saw  the coolest thing of all.  This is a video Granpa took of an image projected onto a fine mist:

For those of you who don't get the video, here's a still he also took.  It's a very ghostly image as the mist is waving and barely visible.