Absaroka Mountain Lodge is an historic dude ranch located about 13 miles east of the east entrance into Yellowstone National Park along U.S. Highway 14-16-20 in Park County, Wyoming. The Lodge probably originated in August 1917 when Earl F. Crouch obtained a permit for the site from the Shoshone National Forest. The original site name was Gunbarrel Lodge from 1917 to 1925. The grand lodge was built over six decades beginning in 1917. In typical dude ranch style, the buildings and structures of Absaroka Mountain Lodge are laid out in a pattern dictated by the lay of the land and the location of creeks and rivers. The evolution of the Absaroka Mountain Lodge and the other historic dude ranches on the old ''Cody Road'' portion of the Yellowstone Highway coincides with growing American affluence and the availability of automobiles. Throughout its long history, the Lodge's activities have been typical of dude ranches for the state. During its period of significance between 1917 and 1950, it reflected the mobility and affluence of the American public, in its quest for new recreational opportunities and experiences.

The Anderson Lodge site (48PA250) is located in the Washakie Wilderness of the Absaroka Mountains east of Meeteetse, Wyoming. The site consists of a two story multiroom log cabin called the Anderson Lodge or Studio, plus a single room log cabin, and several features directly associated with the lodge: an outhouse, two small log footbridges on the path to the outhouse, a developed spring, and a pole corral attached to the lodge. The wilderness setting of Anderson Lodge is a contributing feature to its significance since it is consistent with the historic scene related to the lodge's construction and to its ties to the beginnings of a national conservation program. The site is important for its association with the national conservation movement and development of the USDA Forest Service governmental agency from 1891 to 1907. It is also significant for its association with A. A. Anderson who was instrumental in development and management of the first national Forest Reserves from 1901 to 1906 and was an artist and rancher of local importance. The Lodge also embodies distinctive characteristics of construction and use. The unique log lodge was built in 1890 and was used as an artist's studio, ranch outbuilding, and Forest (Reserve) administrative site. Anderson Lodge is one of the few extant administrative structures directly tied to development of the first National Forest (Timberland/Forest Reserve), built by the first and only Special Superintendent of Forest Reserves, and within and administered by the USDA Forest Service, Shoshone National Forest.

The Buffalo Bill Boyhood Home is a two story frame house containing two rooms downstairs and two room upstairs. The house was built by Issac Cody, father of William Frederick Cody (Buffalo Bill) at LeClere, Iowa in 1841. This boyhood home of Buffalo Bill was brought to Cody in 1933 through the efforts of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. It was placed adjacent to the Railroad's Burlington Inn as a point of interest to the Inn's guests. In 1947 the Railroad gave the home to the Buffalo Bill Memorial Association. It was again moved to a new location near the Buffalo Bill Museum. Then in 1968 the Memorial Association sold its museum building and moved into its new Buffalo Bill Historical Center. In 1970 Buffalo Bill's Boyhood Home was moved again adjacent to the Historical Center.

Construction of the Buffalo Bill Dam was completed in 1910. The Dam is a concrete arch placed near the head of the Shoshone River Canyon. The Dam stands 325 feet high, measured from bedrock. Its hydraulic height is 233 feet; its width at base in 108 feet and at top is 10 feet. The length at the crest is 200 feet and the elevation there is 5,370 feet above sea level. A measured 82,900 cubic yards of concrete were poured during the dam's construction. The reservoir standing behind the dam is also named Buffalo Bill. It has a capacity of 439,800 acre feet of water with a shoreline of about 20 miles.

The Buffalo Bill Dam is one of the earliest achievements of the Bureau of Reclamation and was built in the ''Arch and Crown-Cantilever Method.'' The original name was Shoshone Dam. The entire project, including irrigation canals extending into Montana 70 or more miles from the dam site, watered lands, powerplants, spillways, and diversion tunnels, is named the Shoshone Project. Almost three decades after its construction the title of dam and reservoir was changed by Act of Congress to Buffalo Bill. This was done in order to honor the memory of Col. William Frederick Cody better known as Buffalo Bill. The building of Buffalo Bill Dam cost $1,000,000. Its value and significance to the local area and the State of Wyoming includes the value of annual crops raised on almost 100,000 acres of rich agricultural lands, the wealth resulting from industrial and municipal waters made available, and the further wealth resulting from electric energy furnished to individuals, communities, and industries.

The history of the creation of this statue-memorial commenced one day during the early 1920s when Mrs. Mary Jester Allen, a niece of Buffalo Bill Cody then living in New York City, called at the town house of Mrs. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Mrs. Allen had recently helped other interested relations organize the Cody Family, Incorporated, and she had been selected chairman of that corporation's National Museum Committee. She called on Mrs. Whitney to ask that she sculpt a statue of Buffalo Bill. Mrs. Whitney became enthused with the idea of a Buffalo Bill Statue and she adopted and took over management of the entire project. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney was the daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, the granddaughter of another Cornelius (the Commodore) Vanderbilt. She married into another prominent New York family when she became the bride of Harry Payne Whitney. She studied under Hendrick C. Anderson and James Earle Fraser in New York and, later, under Andrew O'Connor and Rodin in Paris. By 1920 she had fully developed her style, and completed works including the Titanic Memorial in Washington, D.C., the El Dorado Fountain in San Francisco, the Aztec Fountain in Washington, D.C., and the heroic statue of Columbus at Palos in Spain.

There were four possible choices of sites for the location of the proposed memorial: 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. Mrs. Whitney chose the location in Wyoming. She had also decided that the statue would be an equestrian one depicting the frontier army scout in mounted action. To that end she decided that only models of genuine western origin could validly pose for this work. She arranged to have the horse ''Smokey'' shipped via railway express to New York from Buffalo Bill's T E Ranch; found a local citizen, a tall and lithe cowboy, to pose in the saddle; arranged for him to go to New York also; and then she returned to her studio to sculpt. The statue was finished in early 1924. It was shipped on a railroad flatcar to Cody, where an unveiling ceremony was scheduled for July 4th. Miss Jane Cody Garlow, granddaughter of Buffalo Bill, unveiled the bronze statue which was placed on open prairie on the western fringe of the small town.

The lookout is an uncommon and well-preserved example of a Depression-era fire tower utilizing standard Forest Service plans. Road and foundation construction was begun by Civilian Conservation Corps enrollees in the fall 1941. Final construction of the lookout was carried out by the forest service after the CCC was disbanded in 1942. It was completed in October 1943. The lookout is representative of the history of fire detection and control practices within the U.S. Forest Service, specifically in the Shoshone National Forest from 1943 to 1962-63. It is the only fire lookout that remains standing in the Shoshone National Forest. The lookout is also related to the political and legislative events of the Roosevelt Administration’s New Deal policies and programs, in particular, the development and implementation of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as utilized by the U.S. Forest Service from 1933 to 1942. The CCC was disbanded in 1942, but the access road, rock quarrying for the lookout foundation, and overall planning and surveying for the lookout were carried out by CCC enrollees. Clay Butte Lookout also embodies the evolution of a distinctive architectural style, which in time became characterized by standardized plans as a result of the specific functional requirements of fire detection, and provisions for the reasonable comfort and housing of the personnel who staffed the often isolated facilities. Clay Butte Lookout incorporates many standard design features, such as the tower, observation cab, and living quarters.

Colter's Hell is an almost inactive geyser district occurring over approximately one square mile of terrain occupying and fanning out from the mouth of the Stinkingwater River Canyon. The geyser activity has been dwindling during historic times but there are several accounts of its appearance during a more active period. John Colter, explorer and fur trapper, provided verbal descriptions based upon his exploration of the area during his winter journey of 1807-1808. Another ''mountain man'', Joseph Meek, was in the area in 1830 and left a description of the place. Another description of Colter's Hell came through the remembrances of Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow nation about the Chief's childhood during the 1840s when his village camped above the banks of the Stinkingwater River and he and the other Crow children watched the geysers play. Colter's Hell is significant for its relationship to a man who figures prominently in the nation's history and legends, and as the first location within Wyoming to be subjected to recorded exploration by a white man.

The Dead Indian Campsite is located in a mountain valley environment known as Sunlight Basin. This prehistoric campsite and butchering area was discovered during construction work on the Sunlight Basin Road in 1967. In 1969 Dr. George Frison directed archaeological excavations by members of the Wyoming Archaeological Society and students from the University of Wyoming. Extensive amounts of stone artifacts, bones and bone tools were found. The bones, teeth, and antlers were identified and indicated a wide variety of animal life such as deer, elk, mountain sheep, wolf, porcupine, and various types of rodents. Several hearth features were also uncovered. In addition, an extensive rock wall was found which proved to be a curved rock cairn. A pair of very large and complete deer antlers including the top of the attached skull was found face down in the center of the cairn. Excavation eventually uncovered a total of six very large and complete deer antlers, all indicating they were deliberately placed in their respective positions. The site has yielded cultural assemblages of different time periods dating back to about 4500 years ago.

Downtown Cody Historic District contains historically significant buildings primarily dating from 1900 to the 1930s. Basically a rather small district encompassing only a few blocks along Sheridan Avenue, the Cody buildings are typical of other commercial structures built in Wyoming during the same period. Yet the sandstone buildings constructed of locally quarried materials lend the district a distinctive western character. The sandstone and brick detailing of the facades represent a simple stylistic approach to commercial design. Today, the buildings in the Downtown Cody Historic District represent a prosperous commercial area that grew in northern Wyoming at the turn of the century.

Diverse governmental and economic factors helped to assure the town of continued growth and success. William F. ''Buffalo Bill'' Cody used his money and influence to encourage agricultural and commercial development in the Big Horn Basin starting in the 1890s. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Federal reclamation projects provided thousands of acres of farmland in the region surrounding Cody. As ranchers prospered, the town incorporated in 1901 and became the heart of commercial activity for the area. The success of local merchants helped to bring the railroad and municipal improvements to the town early in its development. Cody became the center for local governmental facilities in 1910 when it was established as the Park County seat. The discovery of oil in Elk Basin north of Cody in 1915 gave the town a new industry. During the teens and twenties, agriculture continued to play a dominant role in Cody's growth but the influence of tourist dollars diversified and strengthened Cody's economic base. In 1915 a road constructed between the town and Yellowstone National Park's east entrance permanently affected Cody's development. The popularity of dude ranches and automobile travel beginning in the twenties helped to assure Cody's continued stability. Today, the buildings in Cody's historic district are still the heart of the commercial area and the solid brick and stone buildings physically illustrate the economic successes of Cody's early years.

Elephant Head Lodge is an historic dude ranch located about 12 miles east of the east entrance into Yellowstone National Park along U.S. Highway 14-16-20 in Park County, Wyoming. The buildings and structures are laid out in typical rustic dude ranch style with two grand lodges surrounded by guest cabins and support buildings. The lodge buildings evolved over a period of years beginning in 1926. It was founded by Buffalo Bill Cody's niece, Josephine Thurston, and her husband, Harry W. Thurston, the first Wapiti District Ranger in the nation's first national forest, Shoshone National Forest, when they were issued a permit on December 28, 1926. It was named for a rock formation in the shape of an elephant head, which overlooks the site. The Elephant Head Lodge is historically significant as an operational, nearly intact representation of Western dude ranching, as it arose and evolved in Wyoming in the first half of the twentieth century.

The First National Bank of Meeteetse was built in 1901 and is significant because it was the cornerstone of Meeteetse's early downtown commercial district. As such, the bank building played a key role in the town's early commercial development. In more recent years the building has remained a focal point for the community.

By providing necessary services to the surrounding rural region, the town of Meeteetse became a leading center of trade and commerce within the Big Horn Basin. Meeteetse's fortunes prospered throughout the late 1880s, 1890s, and into the first and second decades of the twentieth century. Commercial development commenced after the official platting of the town lots and blocks by W. S. Collins in 1896, and subsequent sale of these properties between 1896 and the turn of the century. The establishment of a town mercantile in 1898 and a bank in 1900 by local entrepreneurs solidified the town's hold on the local and regional commercial market. The banking firm, a partnership established by Angus McDonald, a prominent area rancher, Adam Hogg and H. G. Cheeseman, was formed under the name Hogg, Cheeseman, McDonald and Company Bankers. The following year the brick bank building was built, and in 1902, the name was changed to The First National Bank of Meeteetse. The bank occ

upied the building's first floor until 1975. The second floor served a variety of functions during the period 1901-1975. It was where the town council met, was a meeting place for numerous civic organizations, and was used by the Rocky Mountain Bell Telephone Company for a number of years. The interior of the bank was restored in 1987 in preparation for the building to be adaptively reused as a museum.

The Goff Creek Lodge is an historic dude ranch located about 11 miles east of the east entrance into Yellowstone National Park in the Shoshone National Forest along U.S. Highway 14-16-20 in Park County, Wyoming. The buildings and structures of the lodge are laid out in typical rustic dude ranch style with a grand lodge surrounded by guest cabins and support buildings. The lodge evolved over a period of years from 1910 to 1965. It was probably built about 1910 by Tex Kennedy. Throughout its long history, the Lodge's activities have been typical of dude ranches for the state. During its period of significance between 1929 and 1950, it reflected the growing mobility and affluence of the American public, in its quest for new recreational opportunities and experiences

The forty bridges in this thematic study are the best of their types which were still in use on the state and county road systems in Wyoming when the study was completed in 1982. Selected from a statewide survey of all functional vehicular trusses and arches using a specific evaluation criteria and methodology, most represent superlatives of their generic engineering types (i.e. truss configuration and connection types) while typifying bridgebuilding and transportation trends in the state. All were built in the first three decades of the twentieth century (1905-1935). Although bridges were put up during the earlier periods of overland wagon emigration, they had not begun to proliferate in the state of Wyoming until the early twentieth century with the emergence of the automobile as a principal form of transportation. All the listed bridges display a remarkable homogeneity of construction and operational histories. Generally, county-built trusses were contracted through competitive bidding among several Midwestern bridge erectors and built from standardized designs using prefabricated components. After creation of the Wyoming Highway Department in 1917, the role of the counties in truss bridge construction diminished. The later highway department bridges were typically designed from standard plans maintained by the department and built by local contractors from components fabricated in the same Midwestern foundries.

One feature that all steel truss bridges shared was their versatility. Quickly erected, they could also be dismantled and moved if necessary. Many county road bridges in Wyoming had begun service as railroad bridges, sold or given to the counties as obsolete structures. Similarly, early highway bridges which had become unsuitable to handle increasing volumes of traffic were sometimes replaced with new trusses, with the older bridges demoted to places along less traveled roads. After World War II, new trussbuilding was rare in Wyoming. Today trusses have been largely superseded by more sophisticated engineering designs and are seldom erected. The remaining highway and roadway truss bridges are remnants of past technologies, whose numbers are continually dwindling through attrition.

One of the ten sites chosen for a Japanese relocation camp during 1942 was unused federal property located between Cody and Powell in Northwest Wyoming. Named for the only notable topographical feature, a nearby 8,113 foot mountain, Heart Mountain Relocation Center contained over 4,600 acres in Park County. Most of the land originally used for the camp is now cultivated for agricultural purposes. The camp was divided by function into district regions such as the hospital complex, administration area, warehouses, and barracks. Of the hundreds of buildings constructed quickly in 1942, only five structures remain at the site. Most of the streets and remnants of camp life are gone. Occasionally locals refer to the former camp as ''a city made of acres and acres of celotex.'' The hastily constructed frame buildings with poured concrete pads and gable roofs lacked ornamentation as well as permanence.

From 1942 through 1945, 14,000 Japanese-Americans passed through the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. At its peak population of over 11,000, Heart Mountain was the state's third largest community. The Center was built to house some of the 110,000 persons evacuated from the West Coast following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. A combination of war hysteria, racial prejudice, perceived military necessity, and a desire for political and economic gain led to this forced evacuation of Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were American citizens. The legality of the forced evacuation is still being debated today, and the scars of the evacuation tragedy remain for the former internees, the residents of Park County, and all Americans. The site of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center is a poignant reminder of a bleak episode in American history, and is of exceptional importance in the military, social, and political history of the nation.

The Horner Site, located in the northern Bighorn Basin of Wyoming, was first investigated between 1949 and 1950 by a paleontologist from Princeton University, followed by archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Wisconsin, and the Smithsonian Institution. The bison bonebed site, which contained beautiful and well made chipped stone weapons and tools, became the type site of the Cody Complex. The stone tool assemblage included Eden and Scottsbluff projectile points and various styles of the Cody Knife. The University of Wyoming conducted further excavations in the late 1970s. Radiocarbon dates indicate that systematic bison procurement occurred for at least a thousand years of Paleoindian time around 9000 years B.P.

William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody was instrumental in the founding and development of the town of Cody, Wyoming in the late 1890s. He believed the town would become a staging point and outfitting headquarters for sightseers touring Yellowstone Park, for big game hunting sportsmen, for vacationers making summertime pack-horse trips into the mountains, for clients patronizing the newly developed dude ranches in the vicinity, and for businessmen investigating and developing ranching, mining and other industrial potentials. He foresaw the need for a hotel and envisioned an outstanding facility. The Irma Hotel, named after one of his daughters, opened for business in 1902. At the opening of the hotel one of the most talked about features was the cherrywood bar and back-bar installed in the saloon. It had been made in France and came to Colonel Cody as a gift from Queen Victoria of England in appreciation of a command performance, staged for her court, by the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. The Irma Hotel established a reputation as a center of social activity which it has maintained through the years.

Mummy Cave is a rockshelter on the left bank of the North Fork of the Shoshone River in Park County. It is adjacent to U.S. Highways 14, 16, and 20 just east of the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park. The site was first given serious attention in 1962 and was subsequently excavated by the Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Radiocarbon dates from the deposits in the cave range from 7280 years B.C. to A.D. 1580. Internally the site comprised 38 cultural strata representing cultures ranging from late Paleoindian to the Late Prehistoric period. The primary and most significant cultural component identified in the occupation strata was the McKean Complex which places the site in the Plains Archaic tradition. Unusually dry circumstances in the site resulted in the preservation of many perishable materials which are not normally preserved in prehistoric context. Among these materials are fragments and artifacts of wood, hide, and feathers. Other artifacts included projectile points, chipped stone knives and scrapers, faunal remains and tubular bone pipes. Features discovered were mostly hearths, but, in addition, there was a very well preserved burial, named ''Mummy Joe'', who was evidently one of the human occupants of the cave during the earlier of the two Late Prehistoric occupations dated 1230 years ago. From the clothing and other items found with this individual, it was concluded that he held high status among his contemporaries. The name of the site derives from this discovery.

Pahaska Tepee is a mountain lodge located in the Absaroka Mountains constructed in 1901. It was built as the hunting lodge of Colonel William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody and as an inn for travelers who followed a long mountain-winding wagon road leading from Cody, Wyoming into Yellowstone National Park. The lodge is a two story building constructed from carefully selected logs sawed from equally carefully selected lodge-pole pine trees. Besides Buffalo Bill's suite, there were six other bedrooms and two bathrooms on the upper level and seven bedrooms in the downstairs level of the lodge. Over the years Buffalo Bill played host at the lodge to many well known people. In 1913 Albert I, Prince of Monaco was a guest for several weeks.

Built in 1945-46, the Paul Stock House is a 6700 square foot, twelve-room Spanish Colonial Revival, or Spanish Eclectic, style ranch house located in a secluded cul de sac overlooking the Shoshone River. The property includes two identical guest houses and a separate, two-car garage/living quarters. The house was originally designed by noted Wyoming architect Leon Goodrich of Casper, who designed many buildings throughout the state beginning in the 1920s and continuing until his death in 1969. Although Paul Stock fired Goodrich from the job, Stock followed the original plans with some minor modifications. The house is constructed of hollow clay tiles, sided with swirl-patterned stucco, and topped with a flat, regularly laid mission tile roof. The two identical guest houses on the property were built at the same time as the house and mimic the Spanish Eclectic style of the main house. The two-car garage/servants' quarters is also in the same style. Paul Stock was a pioneer oil man, philanthropist, and three time Cody mayor who died in 1972. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center received Paul Stock's house after the death of his third wife, Eloise, in 1985, and uses it today for cultural and educational purposes.