William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Delayed Burial

On June 3, 1917, under the wide Colorado sky, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody was finally laid to rest atop Lookout Mountain, just outside Denver. Although he had died nearly six months earlier on January 10, disputes over where he should be buried delayed the ceremony. Many believed he would be interred in Cody, Wyoming, the town he had helped establish, but Buffalo Bill had chosen Lookout Mountain himself. With its sweeping views of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains, it was a fitting resting place for a man whose life had been so closely tied to the American frontier.

Cody died of kidney failure in Denver, Colorado. His widow, Louisa, chose a burial site atop Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado. Because it was the dead of winter, the mountain ground was completely frozen solid, making it impossible to dig a proper grave or hew a tomb out of the solid granite. His body had to be kept embalmed and under guard at a Denver mortuary until the spring thaw arrived.

At the time of his death, Cody’s once-great fortune had dwindled to less than $100,000 (approximately $2,520,000 today). The delay was heavily prolonged by an intense political and emotional feud between two states. Cody had founded the town of Cody, Wyoming, and his 1906 will explicitly stated he wanted to be buried on Cedar Mountain overlooking his namesake town. The citizens of Wyoming felt deeply entitled to his remains.

A later 1913 will gave his widow the right to choose the burial site. She picked Colorado, though Wyoming residents loudly alleged that Denver officials and The Denver Post had bribed her with $10,000 to keep the legendary showman's body in Colorado to boost future tourism. Because the fury ran so high, Wyoming residents openly threatened to raid the Denver mortuary and steal Buffalo Bill’s body to take it back north.

While his body waited in the mortuary, Colorado authorities used the extra time to plan a massive public event and finish preparing the permanent gravesite. On June 3, 1917, an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 people climbed Lookout Mountain for the final open-casket funeral. To guarantee no one from Wyoming could ever fulfill the threats to steal him, his casket was permanently encased deep inside a massive concrete vault.

In 1948, the Cody chapter of the American Legion offered a $10,000 reward (approximately $135,000 today) to anyone who could steal Cody’s body and deliver it to Cody, Wyoming. In response, the Denver chapter of the American Legion mounted a guard over the grave. There are still rumors about the true burial place of Buffalo Bill Cody. Although Lookout Mountain has a gravesite behind a fence and under concrete, there are claims that Cody, Wyoming, was the beneficiary of a body swap carried out before he was buried in Colorado and that he was instead laid to rest on top of Cedar Mountain in Cody.