18 Best Sights in Cody, Sheridan, and Northern Wyoming, Wyoming

This extraordinary "five-in-one" complex, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, contains the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Plains Indian Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, and the Draper Natural History Museum. All are well organized and mount superb exhibitions in their respective subject areas. The flagship Buffalo Bill Museum puts into context the life, era, and activities of its (and its town's) namesake, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846–1917), whose numerous careers included guide, scout, actor, and entrepreneur. If you want to understand how the myth of the American West developed, this is the place to come. The other four museums—there's also a research library—are equally absorbing. Plan to spend at least four hours here—and to discover that this isn't enough time to take it all in. Luckily, your admission ticket is good for two consecutive days.

Begun in 1938 and billing itself the world's longest-running nightly rodeo, this festive, family-friendly summer spectacle at Stampede Park is less flashy and more endearingly intimate than bigger rodeos around the region, such as Cheyenne Frontier Days. Kicking off at 8 pm each evening from June through August, the Cody Nite Rodeo offers kids' competitions, such as goat roping and junior barrel racing, in addition to the regular adult events. Over early July's Independence Day weekend, the annual Cody Stampede features a full long weekend of events at the same venue.

The land that became Wyoming's first state park in 1897 had always been sacred to Native Americans because of its healing natural hot springs. You can partake of these waters by soaking indoors or outside at the free 104°F mineral pools at the State Bath House, which is a central feature of this impressive 1,104-acre park that's also home to two waterparks (which charge admission fees) with more indoor and outdoor hot mineral pools, waterslides, and other amusements. You can also hike or bike on 6 miles of trails, view the park's sizable bison herd, traipse across a swinging suspension bridge that traverses the Big Horn River, offering views of the dramatic travertine mineral terraces.

Five major immigrant trails passed near or through Casper between 1843 and 1870. The best-known are the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, both of which crossed the North Platte River in the vicinity of today's Casper. The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center examines the early history of the trails and the military's role in central Wyoming. Projected onto a series of screens 11 feet high and 55 feet wide, a film shows Wyoming trail sites and scenes of wagon travelers. You can climb into a wagon to see what it was like to cross the river, or learn about Mormon pioneers who traveled west with handcarts in 1856.

Evidence of the area's old-world ties can be found at the Sheridan Inn, just a few blocks from downtown near the old railroad depot. Modeled after a hunting lodge in Scotland, the 1893 building sports 69 gables in a show of architectural splendor not often seen around these parts. On the National Register of Historic Places, the inn once lured the likes of Herbert Hoover, Will Rogers, and Ernest Hemingway, and Buffalo Bill auditioned performers here for his Wild West Show. The Inn underwent a $4.8 million restoration from 2006 to 2009, employing "green" technologies, and an additional $2.8 million was spent in 2010 to refurbish the 22 guest rooms. The original Buffalo Bill Bar, an oak-and-mahogany monstrosity on the main floor, is purported to be a gift sent from England by Queen Victoria.

Casper College's Tate Geological Museum in the Tate Earth Science Center displays fossils, rocks, jade, and the fossilized remains of a brontosaurus, plus other dinosaur bones. The centerpiece for the Tate is Dee, an 11,600-year-old Columbian Mammoth. Dee is one of the largest complete Columbian Mammoths ever discovered.

Among the nearly 60 dinosaur skeletons displayed at this nonprofit museum and research center is the winged "Thermopolis Specimen," the only Archaeopteryx exhibited outside of Europe, and "Stan," one of the most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons in the world, measuring 35 feet long and weighing in at nearly 6 tons. Special full-day programs allow kids and adults to try their hand at paleontology by digging in one of the several active dinosaur sites nearby (some 10,000 dinosaur bones have been excavated in the vicinity since 1993). Tours of the dig site are also offered daily in summer.

A hand-hewn-log blacksmith shop, built in 1879 to serve pioneers on their way to the goldfields of Montana, houses the Bozeman Trail Museum, the town's historical repository and interpretive center. The jewel of its collection is the Cloud Peak Boulder, a stone with names and dates apparently carved by military scouts just two days before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which was fought less than 100 miles to the north in 1876. The staff is very friendly to children, and there are some old pipe organs that kids are encouraged to play.

The Casper Planetarium has multimedia programs on astronomy. There are also interactive exhibits in the lobby and a gift shop. Public programs, which last an hour, are scheduled regularly year-round.

These hour-long tours on vintage trolley–style buses travel 22 miles and cover Cody's history dating back to the late-19th-century era of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. Tours start at the fabled Irma Hotel, named for Buffalo Bill's daughter, and take in historic sites, scenery, and wildlife and other natural attractions. On summer evenings (except Sunday) at 6, stay to watch the amusing if cheesy 30-minute mock gunfights staged outside the Irma. The "Inside & Out Combo" package includes the tour and two-day admission to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.

Edness Kimball Wilkins State Park is a day-use area with picnicking, swimming, fishing, and a 3-mile walking path. This park is along a migratory flyway, with more than 100 different species of birds frequenting the area. For this reason, Edness Kimball State Park has been designated one of Audubon Wyoming’s important bird areas.

The Fort Caspar Historic Site re-creates the post at Platte Bridge, which became Fort Caspar after the July 1865 battle that claimed the lives of several soldiers, including Lieutenant Caspar Collins. A post depicts life at a frontier station in the 1860s, and sometimes soldier reenactors go about their tasks. Museum exhibits show the migration trails.

A showcase for regional artists and mostly modern artwork, the Nicolaysen Art Museum also exhibits works by national artists. The building's early-20th-century redbrick exterior and contemporary interior are an odd combination, but this makes the museum all the more interesting. There are hands-on activities, classes, and children's programs, plus a research library and a Discovery Center.

A short drive west of downtown near the Stampede Park rodeo grounds, you can tour this living history museum that comprises about two-dozen historic buildings from Wyoming's frontier days—including a saloon and a blacksmith's shop—many of them housing photos and pioneer and Native American artifacts. The complex is situated on Cody's original townsite, and a small original cemetery serves as resting place for some of the region's famous mountain men, including Liver Eatin' Johnson, and about 100 horse-drawn vehicles are on display.

A few miles east of Glendo State Park lies a vast stone quarry initially mistaken for the work of early Spanish explorers. Archaeologists later determined the site, known as the Spanish Diggings, to be the work of various indigenous tribes on and off for the past several thousand years. Tools and arrowheads carved from the stone quarried here, including quartzite, jasper, and agate, have been found as far away as the Ohio River valley. To see the diggings you'll have to drive through Glendo State Park.

Artifacts from early settlement days and the period when the Cheyenne–Deadwood Stage Line was in full swing are some of the displays at the Stagecoach Museum. You also can get information about the Texas Cattle Trail.

The Werner Wildlife Museum, near the Casper College campus, has displays of birds and animals from Wyoming and around the world. There are more than 400 birds, fish, and animal species on display across 36 different exhibits.

At the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum, the emphasis is on the Wyoming pioneer settlers and overland immigrants, but this small state-operated museum on the state fairgrounds also has displays on Native Americans and the frontier military.