5 AUGUST 22-28, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | The most famous person in Denver is dead, and he’s been that way for a long time. When William F. Cody, known to posterity as Buffalo Bill, shuffl ed off this mortal coil at his sister’s Mile High City abode on January 10, 1917, at age seventy, he was one of America’s biggest celebrities thanks to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a touring company that distilled the story of how the Great Frontier was pacifi ed into an intoxicating extravaganza — though not for Native Americans, since the troupe’s Indigenous performers mainly reenacted their people’s defeat. The production’s popularity earned the onetime scout-turned-fl amboyant impresario a level of renown generally re- served for presidents and monarchs. No wonder a fi ght soon erupted over where his cadaver should spend eternity. According to the version offered by the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave, located in Lookout Mountain Park (a Denver Moun- tain Park overlooking the city), residents of Cody, Wyoming (a town the proto-superstar founded and named after himself ) pro- claimed that he should be interred there. But the museum account holds that friends like “unoffi cial foster son” Johnny Baker “af- fi rmed that Lookout Mountain was indeed his choice” for his fi nal resting place. On June 3, after a delay caused by frozen ground and snowy roads, Cody’s coffi n was lowered into a spot “with spectacular views of both the mountains and plains.” Baker took advantage of this placement. In 1921, the same year Cody’s widow, Louisa, died and was consigned to the Lookout Moun- tain plot, he opened the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in a sprawling edifi ce (approximate size: 12,000 square feet) that he christened the Pahaska Tepee; “pahaska” is a variation on Buffalo Bill’s Sioux nickname, “long hair of the head.” The museum moved into a new, separate building built in Denver in 1977, leav- ing more room for a restaurant and gift shop that are still going concerns. But not for much longer. H.W. Stewart Inc., a family company currently run by Bill Carle, took over the Pahaska Tepee from the Baker clan in 1956, and except for a nineteen-year gap from the late 1960s to 1988, the outfi t has operated it ever since. But this past spring, the City of Denver announced that because of worries about the condition of the aging building, the restaurant and gift shop will be closed indefi nitely at year’s end. The shutdown edict leaves Carle feeling heartbroken. “You’re almost in tears every day,” he says. Carle gets just as emotional talking about Echo Lake Lodge, at the foot of Mount Blue Sky, which his family began managing on Denver Mountain Parks property in 1965. Denver booted H.W. Stewart from that prop- erty and closed the Lodge in 2022 based on similar concerns about crumbling infra- structure, and it’s now been off-limits for two consecutive summers, with no end in sight. The Lodge’s demise left Carle with what he estimates as $300,000 in fresh merchan- dise emblazoned with “Mount Evans” — Mount Blue Sky’s former name, which was changed last year because it honored John Evans, Colorado’s second territorial gover- nor, who created the conditions that led to 1864’s Sand Creek Massacre. Carle has set up a table stacked with Mount Evans mementos outside the Tepee, with proceeds earmarked for Evergreen’s Alpine Rescue Team. After he raises $10,000, he says, “I’m going to throw the rest in the dumpster.” GETTY IMAGES continued on page 6
