UPDATE: Cody is now the number one small western town to live! So cast your vote to keep Cody at the top of the list!
If you live here, you already know why the small town of Cody, Wyoming is a great place to live. Many of the residents want to keep the great way of life, the spectacular outdoor activities, and scenic, postcard views from in town and outside of town, that sometimes people downplay how great a place it is to live work, raise a family, or start a business. But word has been getting out lately.
Cody Yellowstone logo
So, it’s an honor (some would say a curse) when a media outlet, like USA Today, has Cody listed as one of the top 10 best western towns to live in.
Cody was founded in 1896 by Colonel William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, who when passing through the region, thought it would be a great idea to create an eponymously-named town. Buffalo Bill was so impressed with the possibilities of the region (like irrigation, rich, fertile soil, awe-inspiring scenery, hunting, wildlife, outdoor recreation, and proximity to Yellowstone National Park) that after visiting the region in 1870’s, he came back and founded Cody later in his life. Along with Cody, men whose names still are fixed onto street signs bearing their names, like Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein, and Salsbury, came and settled in the small town that ultimately became incorporated in 1901.
Cody, Wyoming around 1900.
Today, Cody is the county seat for Park County, named after Yellowstone National Park, and has a residential population of over 10,000 people. Cody has a total area of 10.43 square miles, and sits at 5,016 miles in elevation from sea level. The Shoshone River is the main waterway that flows through the city and Cody is located just over 50 miles from the East Gate of Yellowstone National Park on the North Fork of the Shoshone. The town is located in the Bighorn Basin, which surrounded by three mountain ranges: the Absarokas to the west, the Owl Creek Mountains to the south and the Bighorn Mountains to the east. Although the Bighorn Basin was restricted from having white settlements by treaties with Native American tribes in 1868, those restrictions were lifted 10 years later and early settlers, like Buffalo Bill and other investors, began to come in and founded towns in the basin. This made the Bighorn Basin one of the last frontiers to be settled in the lower 48 states of America.
The City of Cody provides services like electricity, sanitation, water, wastewater, parks, law enforcement and more. It is served by the Yellowstone Regional Airport and is a stable, thriving community that is focused on not only the needs of it the local population, but also the hundreds of thousands of people who annually visit from around the globe to experience the awesome beauty and down-home culture that only this mountainous town can provide.
If you’d like to vote for Cody as the number one western town, please do so here. But please, let’s keep this great place to live to ourselves, okay?
