The heroic sized Buffalo Bill Statue behind the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is one of only four items in the city of Cody which rated individual coverage in the American Guide Series book, Wyoming, a Guide to its History, Highways, and People.
Sculpted in 1924 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, the daughter of one Cornelius Vanderbilt and the granddaughter of another Cornelius (the Commodore) Vanderbilt, this grand sculpture stands atop a miniature replica of a nearby mountain, Cedar Mountain. The circumference of the replica mountain is about 270 feet. Cedar Mountain was the area chosen by Cody to be his burial spot - a choice denied by those who buried him.
Fourteen feet from hoof to rifle tip, the statue was cast in bronze and placed atop the 20-21 foot high mini-mountain, giving it a total height of about 35 feet above street level. The statue depicts Buffalo Bill atop his mount as an army scout who suddenly spies sign of his prey, leans down to look closer while reining in his steed and holding up his rifle to signal the rest of the column.
Following is a bit of the story of the statue, from the NRHP Nomination Form.
This bronze equestrian statue is of moderately heroic proportions. The sculptress conceived her subject as an Indian Wars army scout riding in lead of a swiftly moving cavalry column: suddenly the scout spies a tell-tale sign and checks his mount to a haunch settling, hoof scraping halt; simultaneously he bends in his saddle, the better to observe ground markings, while throwing up his right arm, the hand clutching a Winchester carbine as a signal for the column to draw rein. The statue measures about 14 feet from planted horse's hooves to muzzle tip of the upflung Winchester.
Thus the statue, reaching almost 35 feet above street level, massive and the personification of forceful action, creates a striking effect.
The history of the creation of this statue-memorial commenced one day during the early 1920's when Mrs. Mary Jester Alien, a niece of Buffalo Bill then living in New York City, called at the town house of Mrs. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Mrs. Alien had recently helped other interested relations organize the Cody Family, Incorporated, and she had been selected chairman of that corporation's National Museum Committee. Now she called on Mrs. Whitney to present the proposition that Mrs. Whitney should sculpt a statue of Buffalo Bill.
The conditions explained by Mrs. Allen were that the Cody Family was promoting the establishment of a National Memorial to their famous kinsman but that the Family was more interested that such a memorial should be raised than it was in where it should be raised. In fact, the Family still deliberated among four possible choices of sites, in as many different states, for location of the proposed memorial. These four possibilities were: in Iowa, where Cody had been born; in Kansas, where he had won the sobriquet Buffalo Bill; in Nebraska where he had established his "Scout's Rest" Ranch; and in Wyoming where he had finally chosen to make his home.
From the NRHP Nomination Form