Walking Through Time at the Cody Heritage Museum

Jan 17, 2025

The red brick building at the corner of Sheridan and 11th is a special place. The Cody Heritage Museum is located in the DeMaris House, a historic building that has been part of Cody’s downtown since 1907, when the city was new and there were just a few buildings downtown. In early photographs of downtown Cody facing west on Sheridan, often only the Irma Hotel (1902), the courthouse (1911), and the DeMaris House are visible.

When the Cody Heritage Museum was in the early planning stages in 2008, the new museum board was thrilled to procure the DeMaris House for the future site of the museum. The space was small, however. With a floorplan of just 23 x 34 feet on the main floor, the board grappled with the challenge of how to configure the small space to display Cody’s history.

 

Utilizing a small space

Museum Director Lynn Houze said they reached out to an exhibit designer, Ben Kozak. Former board member Ev Diehl, a founder of the museum, knew Kozak from an earlier project. “He’d designed another museum that was quite small, so had experience,” Houze said. She added, “Ev Diehl had worked with him before, so [Ev] contacted him and Ben agreed to come look at the DeMaris House.”
The result was a design for an efficient, counter-clockwise circuit from the front desk around the perimeters of the inside walls. Murals, placards, and cases full of artifacts would line the serpentine route. The museum board was happy with the design and proceeded. By the spring of 2018, the museum was in the final phases of content installation, and the grand opening took place that summer. Today, visitors to the museum are often surprised to see so much rich Cody history condensed into such a small space, but in a streamlined way that does not feel crowded. The history content and displays span from Cody’s prehistory to the 1960s.

Early History

 

At the Cody Heritage Museum, the museum content proceeds in chronological order a few steps from the front desk. The first section describes our local geologic history and mentions the long presence of native people in the Cody area for at least 12,000 years. It includes a placard about the Apsáalooke (Crow) tribe and includes an origin story. Moving along in the hallway counter-clockwise, a case entitled “Staking a Claim: 1884-1894,” describes the first white settlement in the area and what mattered to people just before the turn of the century. For example, with the development of the Carey Act of 1894, irrigation projects on arid lands such as Oregon Basin were the main focus of many investors and settlers. Artifacts in the case also include a Crow cradle board found in Sunlight Basin and land surveying equipment.
 
The next case, “Establishing the Town: 1895-1900,” displays a contemporary Cody Enterprise front page from 1899 and explains how an early business, The Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company (1895), was incorporated by George Beck and Buffalo Bill Cody for the purpose of digging the Cody Canal for irrigation. In the third case, “Early Days of Cody: 1901-1909,” visitors can learn about the city’s first churches and hotels and see clothing that people wore at the time. For example, Betty Isham’s white lace-up boots from 1902 are on display. She was the cook and manager of the TE Ranch for six years.

 

Cody Grows

Between 1910 and 1965, Cody became the town that is familiar to us today. A procession of cases, organized by decades, shows visitors how Cody grew and changed over time. The case “Cody Grows: 1910-1916” shows the heydey of guided pack trips into Yellowstone and Sunlight Basin. Around this time, many North Fork lodges were established, and the formerly rough road to Yellowstone’s East Gate was improving every year, bringing more tourism to Cody.
However, during World War I, Cody’s focus changed. A case for the years 1917 to 1925 recognizes the service of locals who were drafted or volunteered in the war effort. Spanish Flu also hit Cody at this time, and one of the victims was Buffalo Bill Cody’s adult daughter Irma, who was a mother of three and managing the Irma Hotel at the time. Next, cases for the 1930s and 1940s show that local residents were enjoying pastimes familiar to us today, like the Cody Stampede Rodeo, Cody High School dances, team sports, and exploring the outdoors.
 
The final four cases on the curving route through the museum show that Cody changed significantly after Husky Oil was established in 1938. Husky expanded quickly and hired people from all over the country. By the 1950s and 1960s, new housing developments spread east and south of downtown Cody, eventually forming the neighborhoods near Sunset School and Livingston School.

Clues on the Floor

As you walk the curving route through the Heritage Museum, don’t forget to glance down at your feet. Watch as the surface of the floor changes as the chronology of time changes. First, notice the natural surface and a few animal tracks, mimicking our local dry sage landscape. Next, the floor becomes a boardwalk at the same time Cody’s downtown rose out of the mud and dirt using similar wooden plank boardwalks. Finally, the floor turns black, reflecting the introduction of automobile traffic throughout the town. And just as you reach the end of the black asphalt path, you’ll be back where you started at the front desk. Either turn right here and exit onto Sheridan Avenue in modern downtown Cody, or stay a few more minutes to reminisce about Cody’s fascinating history with museum volunteers.

Amy Hoffman
Curatorial Assistant
Cody Heritage Museum

The Cody Heritage Museum focuses on local Cody history -- and accepts family contributions of artifacts and objects that fit the areas of focus for the museum. Get in touch if you can contribute our growing collection.

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