50 Best Sights in Cody, Sheridan, and Northern Wyoming, Wyoming

You can fish, boat, swim, and camp at Keyhole State Park. Bird-watching is a favorite activity here, as up to 225 species can be seen on the grounds. The park is 45 miles east of Gillette and 20 miles south of Devils Tower.

Although local cowboy legend Don King died in 2007, his sons still operate King's Saddlery and King's Ropes, where they've been hand-tooling saddles since the 1940s. They also make high-quality equipment for area ranchers and professional rodeo performers. King's has crafted gear for many celebrities, including Queen Elizabeth II. Unless you're in the market for an expensive saddle, what makes this a worthy stop (and a real treat) is found across a small alley directly behind the store, where a small museum is chock-full of Western memorabilia, ranging from more than 400 vintage firearms and handcrafted spurs to historical photographs, wildlife mounts, and arguably the largest collection of Western saddles anywhere.

The Medicine Bow National Forest, Douglas District, southwest of Douglas in the Laramie Peak area, includes four campgrounds ($5–$10 for camping; campground closed in winter) and areas where you can fish and hike.

A showcase for regional artists and mostly modern artwork, the Nicolaysen Art Museum also exhibits works by national artists. The building's early-20th-century redbrick exterior and contemporary interior are an odd combination, but this makes the museum all the more interesting. There are hands-on activities, classes, and children's programs, plus a research library and a Discovery Center.

A short drive west of downtown near the Stampede Park rodeo grounds, you can tour this living history museum that comprises about two-dozen historic buildings from Wyoming's frontier days—including a saloon and a blacksmith's shop—many of them housing photos and pioneer and Native American artifacts. The complex is situated on Cody's original townsite, and a small original cemetery serves as resting place for some of the region's famous mountain men, including Liver Eatin' Johnson, and about 100 horse-drawn vehicles are on display.

At the Prairie Dog Town on the monument grounds between Devils Tower and the Belle Fourche River, you can observe the burrowing, chirping rodents in their natural habitat. Prairie dogs were once plentiful on the Great Plains, but ranching and development have taken their toll; today, most sizeable populations of the animal are found on protected federal lands.

At this interpretive center inside a modern log cabin just up the road from the Bighorn Canyon Visitor Center, photos, printed materials, and helpful volunteers introduce people to the 120 to 140 mustangs that roam over 38,000 acres of range. Although many of the mustangs will likely be up in the mountains, you're almost sure to see some right from the paved road, Highway 37, which is a short drive east of the center. This could include White Cloud, a stallion featured in two books by Ginger Kathrens.

Local artifacts, including mining tools, cattle brands, and rifles, make up the collection at the Campbell County–run Rockpile Museum. The museum's name comes from its location next to a natural rock-pile formation that served as a landmark for pioneers and cattle drives.

Established in 1891 as the country's first designated national forest, this 2.4-million-acre tract of alpine woodland, sagebrush flats, and verdant meadows extends west from Cody to Yellowstone National Park (which is roughly the same size). At both the headquarters south of downtown and the Clarks Fork, Greybull, and Wapiti Ranger Districts office on the west side of Cody (E203A Yellowstone Ave., Cody), you can pick up maps, buy permits, and obtain advice on the many activities you can pursue in the forest—hiking, camping, fishing, mountain biking, horseback, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, cross-country skiing—and the best places to enjoy them. Some highlights include the well-preserved ghost town of Kirwin, about 65 miles south of Cody, and the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, a designated Wild and Scenic River during its 20½-mile course through the forest about 30 miles northwest of Cody.

A few miles east of Glendo State Park lies a vast stone quarry initially mistaken for the work of early Spanish explorers. Archaeologists later determined the site, known as the Spanish Diggings, to be the work of various indigenous tribes on and off for the past several thousand years. Tools and arrowheads carved from the stone quarried here, including quartzite, jasper, and agate, have been found as far away as the Ohio River valley. To see the diggings you'll have to drive through Glendo State Park.

Artifacts from early settlement days and the period when the Cheyenne–Deadwood Stage Line was in full swing are some of the displays at the Stagecoach Museum. You also can get information about the Texas Cattle Trail.

A vast area that stretches from the edge of the Black Hills almost to the center of Wyoming, Thunder Basin truly is the outback of America. Except for a handful of tiny towns, deserted highways, and coal mines, it is entirely undeveloped. Farmers from the east settled this area at the end of the 19th century, hoping to raise crops in the semiarid soil. Experienced only with the more humid conditions east of the Rockies, the farmers failed, and the region deteriorated into a dust bowl. Most of the land has reverted to its natural state, creating millions of acres of grasslands filled with wildlife. Among the many species is one of the largest herds of pronghorn in the world (numbering approximately 26,000), prairie dogs, and burrowing owls that live in abandoned prairie-dog holes. Highway 116, Highway 59, and Highway 450 provide the best access; a few interior dirt roads are navigable only in dry weather. The grasslands, though, are most impressive away from the highways. Take a hike to get a real sense of the vast emptiness of this land. Stop by the District Forest Service Office in Douglas for maps, directions, and tips.

A Flemish Revival mansion built in 1913 for John B. Kendrick, cattleman and one of Wyoming's first governors and senators, is now the Trail End State Historic Site. The furnishings and exhibits in the home are designed to depict early-20th-century ranching on the Plains. Highlights include elegant hand-carved woodwork and a third-floor ballroom.

Thousands of buffalo bones are piled atop each other at the Vore Buffalo Jump, where Native Americans herded bison over a cliff between the years 1500 and 1800, when hunting was done on foot rather than on horses imported from Europe. The site is open to visitors even as it continues to be excavated by archaeologists.

The Werner Wildlife Museum, near the Casper College campus, has displays of birds and animals from Wyoming and around the world. There are more than 400 birds, fish, and animal species on display across 36 different exhibits.

Built in 1923 as a vaudeville theater called the Lotus, the WYO Theater was closed and nearly demolished in the early 1980s. A strong show of support from the community saved the building, and now the refurbished art deco structure hosts everything from orchestras and ballets to lectures and Broadway revivals, especially in the summer.

At the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum, the emphasis is on the Wyoming pioneer settlers and overland immigrants, but this small state-operated museum on the state fairgrounds also has displays on Native Americans and the frontier military.