Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park

William F. Cody was already a stage performer and a dime-novel hero when he made North Platte home. Louisa Cody and their daughters moved here in February 1878, and he bought 160 acres south of the Union Pacific tracks; with the North brothers he also ran cattle on the Dismal River, sixty-five miles north, until 1882. That year the town wanted a Fourth of July to remember, and Cody organized it. The Old Glory Blowout of July 4, 1882, put roping, bronc riding and buffalo riding in front of a crowd at a privately owned racetrack in town. It is counted as the first spectator rodeo and the beginning of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, which was on the road by 1883.

The ranch he called Scout's Rest grew to 4,000 acres. Patrick Walsh of North Platte built the house in 1886 for $3,900, a Second Empire house with a mansard roof and a three-story tower, the largest house in town at the time. Cody's sister Julia and her husband Al Goodman lived in it and managed the ranch. The barn followed in 1887, with Scout's Rest Ranch painted on its roof, and the Union Pacific at the door let the show move by train.

Cody sold the ranch in 1911. The Game and Parks Commission bought the house in 1964 and restored it and the barn, which now holds Wild West show memorabilia, and in January 2021 the ranch was designated a National Historic Landmark.