"The Menagerie," a Michael Scott painting of William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. Scott is imagining Cody as the impressario of a collection of exotic birds (his touring "Wild West: shows did in fact incorporate a variety of animals -- but not birds). The museum is a complex of five separate collections and a research library in Cody, Wyoming, featuring art and artifacts of the American West. (The five museums are the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Plains Indians Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum, and the Cody Firearms Museum.) Founded in 1917 to preserve the legacy and vision of Colonel William F. Cody, the legendary western scout and showman, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is the oldest and most comprehensive museum complex depicting the life and times of the Old West. Photo by Carol Highsmith.