Contributed by Paul Haseman
June 3rd marks the day of one of the most memorable events in Golden history. On this day in 1917, William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, the most famous person in the world at that time was laid to rest in the Lookout Mountain Park.
A procession of 20,000 people came to Golden by horse, buggy, auto, and train from across the country to participate in the funeral. They all trooped up Lookout Mountain Road, recently completed in 1913, to the gravesite, where George Parfet, Jr., (for whom Parfet Park is named) officiated at the burial. Parfet was the Master of Golden’s Masonic Lodge, of which Cody had been a member since 1869.
Present at the funeral was his wife, Louisa, his sisters Julia and Mary and other family members. Seriously ill, Cody had come to Denver from his ranch in Cody, WY, in December to visit his physician, Dr. East and stayed with his sister, Mary Cody Decker. He died within a month on 10 January at her home, a passing that was news around the globe.
Choosing a burial site quickly centered on Lookout Mountain, where Denver had purchased acreage for its nascent Mountain Park System that January. This mountain top acreage was augmented that May through a donation of additional land by Adolph Coors. That same month, Mary Decker, accompanied by the Manager of the Denver Mountain Park System, visited Lookout Mountain Park and chose it for Cody’s burial. Cody’s remains, after earlier lying in State for one day in January in the Capitol Rotunda, had be held in Denver (under guard) awaiting warmer weather for his burial. “Under guard?” you say. Well, the citizens of Cody, WY, were not pleased that its founder would be buried elsewhere and were rumored to want to see his remains returned to Cody.
It may seem suspiciously coincidental that Buffalo Bill’s resting place would be above Golden in Lookout Mountain Park shortly after Denver’s purchase of that land. Yet, Cody had come to enjoy Golden over many years. Among those visits was a trip to Golden in 1872 with Gen. Sheridan and Russian Grand Duke Alexis just prior to a then famous buffalo hunt led by Cody with Col. Custer and Gen. Sheridan. Other visits included sitting on the front porch of the home on 12th Street of Transcript publisher, George West, sipping and swapping stories as well as Cody’s membership with Golden’s Masonic Lodge. Cody was no stranger to Golden and Denver, where two sisters lived.
In this vein, it was clear that Cody had a great affection for and great trust in his sister. As the famous Buffalo Bill, it might be surprising to know now or even then that Cody was a women’s rights advocate. Employing and featuring Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane in his Wild West Show was unique at the time evidence in part his beliefs. Also, Cody had his ranch and home in Wyoming, which as part of Dakota Territory, as the first place in the world enacted women’s suffrage in 1869 and the first state to do so in 1890. Cody is quoted in the Milwaukee Journal on 16 April 1898:
Set that down in great big black type that Buffalo Bill favors woman suffrage… If a woman can do the same work that a man can do and do it just as well, she should have the same pay.
Colorado was not too far behind in 1893 with the rest of country lagging 27 years later with ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
But we digress . . . Cody got his sobriquet, Buffalo Bill, when he hunted buffalo for the workers on the Kansas Pacific at age 21 as it headed west. Before and after his short stint hunting buffalo, Cody served with the Army during the Civil War and afterward as a scout. Not any scout but the Chief Scout of the US Army. Notable was his scouting for the Army following Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. So, Cody was well known by General Sheridan and other military officials long, long before he gained world-wide fame with his Wild West Show, which he began in 1883. Militarily, he was the real deal and in 1872 at age 26, Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery.
Golden honors Buffalo Bill each year with its biggest event, Buffalo Bill Days, and the Buffalo Bill Museum atop Lookout Mountain is always a great place to visit.
