If you leave Yellowstone through its east entrance, the lovely and historic Wapiti valley provides an entertaining passageway out into the Big Horn Basin.  Just outside Yellowstone is Pahaska Teepee, Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody's hunting lodge. (Pahaska, meaning long hair, was Cody’s Crow name.)  Buffalo Bill loved this valley and you will enjoy it, too.  As you come out of the tight cleft of the canyon you pass Buffalo Bill Reservoir, named for its sponsor who envisioned it providing irrigation water for the dry lands of the Big Horn Basin.  You emerge into wide-open plains where the little town of Cody waits to welcome you. 

This too is unabashedly Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody country.  When the organizers of the town asked Cody if he would be president of their promotional company, he was delighted to lend his backing to the endeavor, and suggested that the town be named after him.  The committee was happy to comply, reflecting that the name choice "highly pleased the Colonel," while doing the town no harm.  One story says that the money for Cody's first church was raised at a high stake poker game, with the winner having the honor of determining the church's denomination.  Colonel Cody supposedly won, and chose Episcopal in honor of his parent's Virginia roots.

This friendly town has always welcomed tourists on their way to or from Yellowstone, and the acclaimed Buffalo Bill Historical Center deserves all the attention it receives.  The Center has four distinct museums -- The Whitney Gallery of Western Art, with wonderful collections of Frederick Remington and Charles Russell; the Plains Indian Museum; the Buffalo Bill Museum; the Cody Firearms Museum, a feast for gun lovers; and the newest addition, the Draper Collection of local and Yellowstone history.

Old Trail Town outside of Cody draws you away from the romantic Wild West legends of Buffalo Bill, for a look at the rough life of a region that was lawless not many years ago.  Old Trail Town is the result of a local man's lifelong hobby of rescuing historic Wyoming buildings, transporting them here, and then restoring them with authentic artifacts gathered throughout Wyoming.  A cabin from Butch Cassidy's Hole-in-the-Wall hideout rests alongside the Rivers Saloon from west of Meeteetse, still sporting bullet holes in its door.  Another cabin was built by Victor Arland, a French trapper and gold prospector whose trading post on Meeteetse Creek grew into the Big Horn Basin's first town.

Named after its founder, Arland was a rough and deadly place where outlaws congregated, prostitutes worked hard, and alcohol flowed freely.  "Woman in Blue" Belle Drewry was the Arland working girl for whom cowboy and outlaw W. A Gallagher got himself killed in 1884.  Gallagher's good friend Blind Bill Hoolihan then vowed to avenge his friend's death, but turned up dead himself, shot in the back by an unknown killer.  In 1888, Victor Arland was killed at a poker game, shot in the back in retaliation for his shooting of Broken Nose Jackson in a quarrel over Rose Williams.  Arland's partner kept the town running for a few more years, until a disastrous feud in 1897 resulted in the deaths of five people in two days, including Belle Drewry.  She was shot by a cowboy whose friend she in turn had shot.  Old Trail Town's small graveyard contains the remains of Belle Drewry, W. A. Gallagher and Blind Bill Hoolihan. If you are the pondering type, you can stand over them and imagine the dangerous life of this region only a century ago.