Here, visitors see and touch artifacts, from guns and clothing to an actual wagon used in productions of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows.Ĭody marketed “trick” shooting as mass entertainment within his Wild West show – mammoth productions featuring horses, stagecoaches, live bison and as many as 500 players including talent like Dr.
The cultural aspect of firearms is further explored in the museum’s extensive presentation of the history of exhibition shooting in the Buffalo Bill Museum. The threat of bodily harm was used to market handguns to women well before the 20th century, too. In the “nothing new under the sun” category are plenty of ads using attractive young women to sell guns and ammo. Mom, Pop and the kids unwrap air rifles ’round the Christmas tree, all smiles. Blue-eyed, tow-headed boys gaze longingly at passing skeins of ducks while expressing the desire to own a shotgun like Dads! Guns are pitched to junior shooting corps and recommended for training up boys in the responsible ways of men. Posters, calendars and magazine ads framed in the museum portray a mid-20th century American culture remarkably different from today’s. While the guns themselves paint a detailed picture of firearms history, advertising memorabilia is equally informative. By the late 1920s Winchester was marketing some 5,000 products with the slogan “As Good as Our Guns.” So Winchester went into the hardware business with Simmons Hardware Company, making nearly anything that would sell. There wasn’t enough consumer demand for guns and ammo to continue funding the giant operation. And shovels, ice skates, fishing reels and flashlights.Īfter its massive buildup of manufacturing capacity during WWI, Winchester found itself with loans to pay but no more government contracts to fill. Smith, Parker, Ithaca, Stevens, Browning, Savage and Ruger guns.Īltogether, some 7,000 firearms are on display along with more than 30,000 related artifacts from ammunition and saddles to posters, toasters and knives. Hawken, Colt, Spencer, Sharps, Henry, Winchester, Remington, L. Handguns, shotguns, rifles and gatling guns. You’ll find four-barrel pistols and revolving rifles. There are matchlocks, needle guns, flintlocks and caplocks. Whether you’re interested in the role of firearms in warfare, the “taming” of the West, the advancement of wildlife conservation or the evolution of pop culture, you’ll find it at the Cody Firearms Museum, repository of the most comprehensive collection of American firearms in the world. This one is bright, clean, systematically organized and fascinating for anyone interested in guns, ammo and the history they helped create. Cowboys, Native Americans, miners, settlers and adventurers wore, packed, carried, traded, demonstrated and regularly used revolvers, shotguns and rifles around town, but in its wild west heyday, Cody never had as many firearms per capita as it does now – at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West Cody Firearms Museum.įorget the musty, dusty, boring museums of your childhood. It was founded in part by the producer of the famous Wild West Show, William F.
It must have been a wild, wide-open town, and understandably so.
Aggressive kids plinked at cans in backyards and sharp-eyed women blasted glass balls tossed in the air. Roughhewn men walked the streets with guns. With 7,000 firearms and 30,000 related artifacts on display, the Cody Firearms Museum has the world’s most comprehensive collection of American firearms.