By ROBERT N. JENKINS, Times Travel Editor
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 26, 2000
LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, COLO. -- An amusing controversy surrounds Buffalo Bill Cody's burial site, of all things.
He died in January 1917, while visiting his sister and his friends in Denver. Folks in northern Wyoming, where Bill had lived and founded the town of Cody, figured the colonel would have wanted to be buried back there, near his family.
But Denver's promoters, led by a local newspaper publisher, got Bill's wife to swear that he wanted to be buried on a mountaintop near Denver. (Later, a priest who administered last rites and some of Bill's riding troupe backed up the idea.)
The road to the burial site, atop Lookout Mountain several miles west of Denver, was impassable at the time of Bill's death, and it was not until June of that year that his embalmed remains were buried. An estimated 20,000 lined the twisting mountain road up to the grave site, and when his widow insisted the coffin be opened, many of those thousands filed past for one last look at the great frontiersman and show-buiness entrepreneur.
Then his coffin was put in the ground and covered. But that wasn't the end of the matter. Rumors kept cropping up that Wyoming relatives were coming for his body, as were neighbors from his ranch in Nebraska. So the Colorado National Guard was ordered to trundle one of its World War I tanks up the mountainside, where it was postioned at the grave to protect the body.
When Cody's wife died in 1921, she was buried with him, and tons of cement were poured on the site to guarantee their stay here.
A museum adjacent to the grave site displays Cody memorabilia and runs a newly created, 18-minute video that documents his life. Of special interest are snippets of ancient film of his Wild West show.
Cognizant of the burial controversy, the museum's film is titled By His Own Request.