Cody, Wyoming -
Daily Street Gunfights

The free gunfights occur Monday through Saturday nights (June 1 thru Sept 30) from 6 pm to about 6:30 pm in the street in front of the porch of the Irma Hotel in downtown Cody. Arrive early and get a free seat on the rock wall or picnic tables. Or rent a folding chair for $1 from the Cody Trolley Tours ticket booth on the porch of the Irma. They'll put your name on the chair so you can arrive 1 minute before the show and still get a front row seat. 200-400 people attend nightly and only 150 folding chairs are available. Half the proceeds go to gunfighter charities. [Mike Johnson, 03/25/2006]

[RA: Photo by Margie Johnson.]

Summertime brings visitors from all over to Cody, a tourist town that serves as the gateway to the east entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The town is famous for the Cody Nite Rodeo, a nightly rodeo through the summer months. Every afternoon, a guy with a loudspeaker drives around Cody in a tacky Cadillac festooned with American flags and a set of longhorns on the hood, inviting one and all to buy tickets to the rodeo. The Irma Hotel on Sheridan Avenue, once owned by Buffalo Bill, is the site of a daily reenactment of a street gunfight. A block of 12th Street is cordoned off, and actors in period attire fire blanks at each other in a noisy, smoky skit that usually draws a large crowd. [Kathy Isabell, 03/13/2000]