Scout’s Rest Ranch, North Platte, NE

Buffalo Bill Cody is a Wild West icon. When we had the chance to see his home in North Platte, Nebraska, we jumped at the chance.

Listed as a National Historic Landmark and State Historical Park, Scout’s Rest Ranch was quite an adventure. We are intrigued with learning about the history of people and places, so this stop was on our must-see list.

For those of you not familiar with Buffalo Bill Cody, he was born on Feb. 26, 1846 and died Jan. 10, 1917. Due to the death of his father, Bill and his sister Julia took care of their younger siblings. According to the website https://outdoornebraska.gov/location/buffalo-bill-ranch/, “At age 9, Cody started working for Russell, Majors and Waddell, a freighting firm out of Kansas that also started the Pony Express.” After his stint in the Civil War, he then went on to supply the buffalo meat for the Kansas Pacific Railway.

This hardworking young man married Louisa M. Frederici in March of 1866 and they had 4 children, but only 2 survived past childhood.

Arta Lucille Cody Thorp was born on Dec. 16, 1866 and passed away on Jan. 30, 1904. Her death at age 37 was caused by surgery complications.

Kit Carson Cody was born on Nov. 26, 1870 and passed away on April 10, 1876. His death at age 5 was due to scarlet fever.

Orra Maude Cody was born on August 15, 1872 and passed away on Oct. 25, 1883. The cause of her death at age 11 was a remittent fever.

Irma Louise Cody Garlow was born on Feb. 6, 1883 and passed away on Oct. 15, 1918. Irma passed away at age 35 due to the flu epidemic which also took the life of her husband. She is shown above in the photo with her father. The mount of the buck was her successful hunt.

Even though I know Buffalo Bill was the star of the show, I was very interested in learning about his wife, Louisa. (May 27, 1844 – Oct. 21, 1921) She was a soft-spoken woman, but she spoke her mind. I can certainly relate to that, lol. She seems pretty amazing to me! Fun fact: The first time she saw Bill, she had slapped him due to a prank her cousin played on her. They ended up getting married, so I guess he didn’t hold a grudge. 😁

However, I felt so bad for Louisa knowing that she survived not only losing her 2 children when they were so young, but she also outlived Bill and her adult children. She ended up raising 4 out of the 5 grandchildren she had since both of her adult daughters and their spouses died before her. Her daughter Irma had daughter, Jane, and 2 sons, Frederick and Billy Joe. Arta had daughter, Clara, and son, William. Clara was raised by her father’s family, but William was raised by Louise. Birth & death dates courtesy of findagrave.com.

During their marriage, Buffalo Bill had quite a few different jobs, but the one that earned him the nickname “Buffalo Bill” was his work providing buffalo meat to the railroad workers. An interesting fact I learned was that “He was a pioneer in the development of irrigation in both Nebraska and Wyoming.” How cool is that? (Nebraska Historical Marker, par. 2)

Capitalizing on his fame, he started the “Rocky Mountain and Prairie Exhibition,” which was later changed to “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” The show toured the United States and throughout Europe, and was wildly popular. Some of the other performers were Annie Oakley and Sitting Bull.

Buffalo Bill built Scout’s Rest Ranch in 1886 with some of the proceeds made from his Wild West Show. It was fascinating to enter the home and see the way the family lived, and this is where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t touring for his Wild West shows.

Scout’s Rest Ranch is open to the public for tours, and the home is filled with memorabilia from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. The barn also houses memorabilia and wagons used to transport them around the country.

The mansion and grounds were beautiful! You can tell it has been lovingly preserved and well taken care of.

For those of you who may be interested in making the journey to see this historic home, the cost was $4 for adults (13 and up), $1 for children ages 3-12, and free for children 2 and under for admission as of July, 2025. There is also a State Park Vehicle Entry Permit that is required. Since we are out of state residents, the daily cost was $14. Nebraska resident daily cost was $7.

You can view the vlog post here:

Some fun pics of our family:

We hope you are enjoying our travels! We’d love to welcome you to subscribe to our free weekly email list, Facebook page, Instagram, TikTok, & YouTube channels. You can also share it with your friends, if you’d like. We added some videos on our YouTube channel to go along with the post: https://www.youtube.com/@TravelingwiththeTrapps

You can find our Tiktok videos here: tiktok.com/@travelingwiththetrapps

Thanks so much and stay tuned for more Traveling with the Trapps!

Share this: