by Dina Mishev
Q: What’s your family’s history in the area?
BOB RICHARD: My grandfather came from Eden, Vermont, at the age of 12. He came out by himself on the railroad to Red Lodge and caught a ride on a wagon to Meeteetse where he went to work for one of the cattle ranches there. In 1908, my granddad was guiding tours into Yellowstone and my grandmother was a guest on one of those trips. When [the tour was over,] she went home to Chicago and my granddad followed her. They married on New Year’s Eve in 1908 and then my grandfather brought her back to Cody. On my mom’s side, they were cattle and sheep ranchers out of Byron, Wyoming, for about five generations.
Q: I heard there is an interesting story behind how you met your wife, June. Would you care to share it?
BR: While I was working in the park, I arrested two young nurses from DC for feeding bears. I gave them the option of getting a ticket or going to dinner with a ranger. We went to the Silver Dollar in Jackson. We got back to Yellowstone late that night and the next day we exchanged phone numbers. Three months later, both girls came and got jobs.
Q: Which one became your wife?
BR: I dated the prettiest one, of course! Really, from the first time I saw her, I knew it was June. It was just one of those connections. After June and I got married, her girlfriend went back to DC to get a job that paid more money than Cody did. We had three sons. June died after we had been married for 56 years.
Q: You have quite a photo archive—about 200,000 digital images and another 150,000 on negatives. How’d you get into photography?
BR: When I was in junior high school, my dad started a newspaper called the Cody Times. He ended up needing help in the dark room. And then he purchased the [Cody] Enterprise and the radio station so he needed more help. If I wasn’t [busy with] sports, I was in the community taking photographs for him. Since then, I’ve continued to keep a camera by my side. I have the files of my life in photographs.
Q: What are your favorite subjects to shoot?
BR: The landscapes in this area and the wildlife. Foremost will be grizzly bears. But I photograph bison the most. They’re always there. But any animal, be it the size of a chipmunk or bird, they get my fullest attention.
BUFFALO BILL DAM
Built as a prototype for the Hoover Dam, the Buffalo Bill Dam (actually the Shoshone Dam until 1946 when it was renamed to honor Cody) was the highest dam in the world at 325 feet tall when construction was finished in 1910. The dam was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 and 2 years later named a National Civil Engineering Landmark. Today it’s still impressive and a visitor center helps you understand the engineering behind the structure’s magnitude. The dam took 82,900 cubic yards of concrete to make; the last bucket was poured when the temperature was 15 degrees below zero.
In addition to providing irrigation to the Bighorn Basin, the dam created Buffalo Bill Reservoir. Buffalo Bill State Park has camping and fishing areas on the reservoir. Wind blowing down three mountain canyons meets at the reservoir, which is why the reservoir has also been named one of the country’s best places to windsurf by Outside magazine. 4808 US 14/16/20; (307) 527-6076; BBDVC.com
Smith Mansion
As gorgeous as the natural scenery is on the road between the East Entrance and Cody, the Smith Mansion will make you pull the car over and stop. The whimsical, pagoda-roofed building, which is part log cabin, part fun house, stands 77 feet tall on a small rise on the south side of the road.
Francis Lee Smith began building the house from fire-damaged lodgepole pine collected from nearby Rattlesnake Mountain without any blueprints in the early 1970s. The Cody native used a crane to raise four heavy timbers into place; that was the only heavy equipment used during construction. His intention was to build a home for his family, and, for a time, the whole family did live there, even though the only electricity came from an extension cord attached to a generator outside. When Smith and his wife, Linda, divorced, he redoubled his efforts and truly let his imagination loose. The house has five floors, more balconies than can be counted, flights of exterior stairs, and a miniature indoor basketball court. The dining table is a massive tree trunk. It does not have anything as prosaic as a bedroom. When Smith’s children, Sunny and Bucky, stayed with their dad after the divorce, they’d sometimes sleep in sleeping bags next to the wood-burning stove—the only heat source for the entire mansion.
LOCAL LOWDOWN AMBER KELSEY, Owner of the Beta Coffeehouse
Amber Kelsey’s family moved to Cody when she was 3½ years old. Over 30 years later, she’s still there. Most days you can find her behind the counter or in the bakery at the Beta Coffeehouse, which she bought in 2016.
Founded in the early 2000s by avid rock climbers Mike and Meg Snyder, the Beta has been through several owners and a move in the last decade. Amber’s mission is to make the Beta a positive and loving force in the community. 1450 Sheridan Ave., (307) 587-7707
Q: Did you know the Beta before you bought it?
AMBER KELSEY: I’ve known Meg since we were about 12. I [had] worked for the prior owners for several months, and that’s what put me in a position to buy it. But I had to find a new location.
Q: What’s the Beta’s role in the community?
AK: It’s one of very few safe, welcoming spaces. We welcome anyone. If you are kind, you belong. I don’t allow any hateful actions.
Q: How has the Cody community changed during your life?
AK: It used to be a tight-knit, cliquish community, but the younger generation coming up is far more welcoming and cooperative and inclusionary. It’s a privilege to see this town realize it has room for everyone.
Q: What hasn’t changed?
AK: People’s independence. The general feel of you do you and I do me and we let each other have space. Also the appreciation of all our wilderness around here.
Q: What’s your favorite coffee drink?
AK: Honey latte. Honey and coffee are meant for each other. Put a little cinnamon in and it’s amazing.
Q: If someone comes in after a hike, what sweet snack do you recommend?
AK: We do all of our own baked goods here. We make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. They are picture perfect—they look like supermodel cookies and they taste as good as they look. We do a killer lavender white chocolate scone too. It is ridiculous.
“He was a genius,” says Sunny. “Even with everyday things—he just saw them different. He was very eccentric. He was a visionary and an artist in every sense of the word.” Smith collected materials such as maple flooring from the Meeteetse high school gym and an elevator from the old Western Wear store in Cody, but he never got around to installing them in his home. We can only speculate as to what he had planned for future additions.
For several years now, Smith’s daughter, Sunny Smith Larsen, has been working to preserve the structure via the Smith Mansion Preservation Project. Since Lee’s death in 1992 at age 48, the home has fallen prey to vandalism and the elements.
To help raise money to preserve the mansion, Sunny and her husband, Paul, open the house to the public for one weekend a summer. The rest of the year, you’ll have to be satisfied with admiring it from the road. 2902 North Fork Hwy./US 14, smithmansion.webnode.com
CLIMBING IN CODY
Cody is known for having the highest concentration of multipitch ice climbs of anywhere in the Lower 48 states. These climbs are all up the South Fork of the Shoshone. The Cody Ice Fest (codyicefest.com) was established in 1998 and has grown into one of the most popular ice-climbing festivals in the country. Joe Josephson, profiled on page 222, wrote the definitive guide to ice climbing in the area, Winter Dance.
But Cody isn’t just ice climbing. In recent years, the local climbing community has been hard at work on boulder problems on Cedar Mountain. “Bouldering” is rock climbing performed without using ropes or harnesses. (Climbers often place bouldering mats—thick pads—on the ground below them.) A bouldering route, called a “problem,” usually gets no more than 20 f
eet above the ground. About 800 problems at varying levels of difficulty have been identified on sandstone rocks on Cedar Mountain. Coming into Cody from the east, take a right just before you exit the canyon past Buffalo Bill Dam. Go left at the Y junction and continue up the switchbacks. About half of the boulder problems are accessed from the turnout at the end of the third switchback. It’s also a nice area to hike around.
ROAD TRIP 2 OLD WEST
In Cody’s early days—the town was incorporated in 1901—it wasn’t uncommon to see bison running through downtown. Cowboys were known to ride their horses right into the Irma Bar. Co-founded by one of the most popular and well-known personalities of the American West, Buffalo Bill Cody, the town has cleaned up quite a bit since that time, but its heart is still authentically western.
Irma Hotel
In 1883, Buffalo Bill Cody founded his Wild West Show, which went on to tour the country and world for 30 years. You might think he would have been too busy to concern himself with a hotel, but you’d be wrong. It was important to Cody that the town he co-founded have a hotel worthy of the well-to-do Americans and the European royalty who traveled to the area to tour Yellowstone National Park.
Cody hired Lincoln, Nebraska, church architect Alfred Wilderman Woods to design this hotel. Some of the exterior walls are made of local river rock and sandstone from Beck Lake, which is just south of town. The hotel’s massive fireplace is constructed from rock, ores, minerals, and even fossils all collected in the Big Horn Basin.
The hotel opened in November 1902 as “The Irma.” Cody named it for his 18-year-old daughter. But when he said, “[The Irma] is just the sweetest hotel that ever was,” there was no doubt which Irma he was talking about. It was also a fairly lively spot. At the time, tryouts for the Wild West Show were held on lots to the west of the hotel.
If you’re planning to overnight in Cody, there is plenty of room at the Irma today. In addition to the original hotel, a northwest annex was built in 1929 and a southwest addition was done in 1977. Or you can hang out in the bar, which is now the Irma’s biggest claim to fame. The cherrywood bar is one of the most photographed attractions in the entire town. Queen Victoria gifted it to Buffalo Bill in 1900. Buffalo Bill and Queen Victoria became friends when his Wild West Show traveled to Great Britain. The Queen was taken with Cody’s charisma and appreciated that he put on free shows for orphans. The bar was made in France and brought to New York City by steamer. In New York, it was loaded onto a train and then brought to Red Lodge, Montana. From Red Lodge, it took 2 weeks to get it to Cody via horse-pulled freight wagon. 1129 Sheridan Ave., (307) 587-4221, www.irmahotel.com
Wayne’s Boot Shop
Kevin and Kim Lundvall took over running Wayne’s Boot Shop on Cody’s main street from Kevin’s dad, Wayne, in 1996. Wayne had bought the business in 1959, when he was barely 20 years old. He grew up on a ranch in the area and had rheumatic fever as a kid, which damaged his heart valves. “A doctor told him he better find work other than ranching to do,” Kevin says. “When he graduated high school, Dad apprenticed at the shoe shop.” And then a couple of years later, Wayne bought that shoe repair shop. Wayne fixed boots and shoes in all conditions, but didn’t sell any new ones until 1973. Kevin says his dad brought in Nakona boots that year and then “he grew the retail side as he could afford to. He wouldn’t borrow money to do it. He added about one new line a year.”
Kevin started working in the shop when he was in junior high school. “If we weren’t in sports, we were down here tearing shoes apart for dad,” he says. “I worked a half-day my senior year in high school. In 1978, I started full time.” Kevin has only worked at one other place in his life: “The summer I was sixteen, I worked at a gas station.”
Kim didn’t start working at Wayne’s until her senior year of high school. “My family moved to Cody right before my senior year,” she says. “I got a job right away.” She remembers her first day vividly. “It was opening day of deer season and Kevin shot a nice whitetail,” she says. “He came by the shop to show his folks the deer.” At the time, Kevin was running the repair shop part of the business, so Kim began to see him around. “Eventually I started thinking Kevin was pretty awesome,” she says. The two married in July 1985 and Wayne offered Kevin the job of running the repair shop starting that August.
Kim and Kevin took over the whole shebang in 1996. “We signed the papers in February and they left town and went south, which my dad had never done before,” Kevin says. “He was able to leave the shop behind. He’d call and check on us, but he was retired, and he loved it.” Wayne died in 2014.
Since buying the business, Kim and Kevin have doubled the size of the store, and Kim began keeping the books on a computer. Kevin’s “mom did all of the bill pay by hand, so when I took over I decided I was going to do it by computer,” Kim says. They have five kids ages 18 to 29. “They have all worked their summers in the shop,” Kim says.
The biggest change Kevin and Kim have seen in Cody since they took over ownership of Wayne’s Boots is other family businesses disappearing. “I think we’re the oldest family business now,” Kim says. “Webster’s Chevrolet was founded before us, but they sold out a few years ago.” 1250 Sheridan Ave., (307) 587-5234, waynesbootshop.com
LOCAL LOWDOWN JAY LINDERMAN, Owner of Adriano’s Spaghetti Western
Adriano’s is a spaghetti western restaurant of the most authentic sort. Chef Chrissy Linderman specialized in Italian and Mediterranean cuisine while studying at the Culinary Institute of America (Hyde Park, New York, and St. Helena, California). Her husband, Jay, is a former pro rodeo cowboy whose family is pretty much the first family of the sport. Walk into the restaurant, inhale deeply the smell of garlic, and look at the black-and-white photos on the walls of Jay’s great uncles (Bud and Bill Linderman are both in the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame [PRHF]), his dad, Walt, and Walt’s world champion horse, Scottie, who was inducted into the PRHF in 2016. You’ll even see some photos of Jay. Turn your attention to the menu and you’ll find pasta served with Angus steaks. “If you’re going to be an Italian restaurant in Cody, Wyoming, you better serve the best steak in town,” Jay says. The Aces High Ribeye is served with spaghetti and marinara sauce instead of french fries. “There isn’t a baked potato in the house,” Jay says. 1244 Sheridan Ave., (307) 527-7320, adrianositalianrestaurant.com
Q: You grew up nearby in Belfry, Montana. Did you come to the Cody Nite Rodeo to compete?
JAY LINDERMAN: That is kind of where I started. I started rodeoing in 1971, maybe 1970, [when] I was a junior in high school. I started bull dogging, following in my dad’s footsteps. Every summer, we’d come over to the Cody Nite Show as many times as we could. We’d finish up work and drive here as fast as we could.
Q: In the 40-some years since, has the Cody rodeo changed?
JL: It is still kind of the same deal. It is bigger and better managed, but still the same deal.
Q: How’d you go from rodeo to the restaurant business?
JL: I had a scholarship to Montana State and rodeo-ed through college and then went on to rodeo professionally until 1984. [That was when] I decided I had better go to work for a living. My family has been in rodeo for four generations and they expected me to continue that pursuit. I wasn’t really popular with my father when I quit.
Q: Do you regret quitting?
JL: Hindsight being 20/20, I would have liked to have pursued rodeo further to see where it would have taken me, but I don’t have any regrets having worked. I managed ranches for 30 years before we opened this restaurant.
Q: What is more difficult: rodeo or running a restaurant?
JL: Running a restaurant. I was a steer wrestler. With that, the only person you have to worry about is yourself, and I had a young family, so I worried about them too. A restaurant is more of a complicated business.
Q: Why steer wrestling?
JL: I was about 220 pounds and that is pretty big for the riding events. I tried those when I was in high school, but my size eve
ntually dictated it was steer wrestling and calf roping.
Q: What’s your favorite item on Adriano’s menu?
JL: I raised black angus cattle for 30 years, so my favorite is the certified angus rib eye steak served with fettuccine alfredo.
Chamberlin Inn
In over a century of continuous operation, the Chamberlin Inn has hosted Ernest Hemingway, Marshall Field, and Erle Halliburton. “In the ’20s and ’30s, the Chamberlin Inn was the place to stay in Cody,” says current owner Ev Diehl.
Agnes Chamberlin opened a simple boarding house in 1903 and with her husband’s help began adding to it over the years. Hemingway stayed here in 1932, just after he had completed the manuscript for Death in the Afternoon. In between fishing trips on the Clark’s Fork River, he mailed the manuscript to his publisher.
While the inn has been in continuous operation since 1903, by the 1980s and 1990s, it had lost much of its luster. In 2005, longtime locals Ev and Susan Diehl bought it and launched a complete renovation. They took the claw-foot tubs that could be salvaged and sent them up to Billings to be re-enameled. They pulled the original steam radiators out of all of the rooms and sandblasted “about thirty coats of paint” off them, says Ev, before re-installing them. They pulled fake paneling off of walls and demolished dropped ceilings. They chipped off plaster applied over original brick walls.
