The Irma Hotel, Cody, Wyoming

Of our innumerable trips to the Yellowstone area I don't believe we ever stopped in Cody, Wyoming.  Granpa and his family might have - but not Granpa and I and our family.

Looking for a place to have lunch, I spy the Irma Hotel.  It's lookin' like it's been in downtown Cody since the beginning of Cody - probably because it has been.

The one and only Buffalo Bill Cody built this place and named it after his daughter.  It cost Cody about $80,000 back then.  The Irma hasn't gone the way of many small town businesses; it is still very much alive and well.  One of the interior highlights is the solid cherry bar given to Buffalo Bill by none other than Queen Victoria!  (That seems rather odd to me - but it seems to be the truth.  I mean, did she give it to him because she heard he was opening a hotel?  Did she intend it as the registration desk and he put it to better American West use?)  Regardless, it's really pretty.

Buffalo Bill's whole plan was for folks riding the new Burlington Railroad line into Cody to stay there and book horse and buggy trips into the east entrance to Yellowstone.  He just knew he'd make another one of his fortune, but alas, it was not to be.

More importantly to us, the food was FANTASTIC!! and very affordably priced.  It was a fun lead into the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.  THE most amazing, all-comprehensive museum of the west we've been to - and classy.

Why!  There's Granpa with the man himself.