History
The basin was explored by John Colter in 1807. Just west of Cody, he discovered geothermal features that were later popularly called "Colter's Hell". The region was later transversed by the Bridger Trail, which was blazed in 1864 by Jim Bridger to connect the Oregon Trail to the south with Montana. The route was an important alternative to the Bozeman Trail, which had crossed the Powder River Country, but had been closed to white settlers following Red Cloud's War. Around the turn of the 20th century the Bighorn Basin was settled by ranchers such as William "Buffalo Bill" Cody who founded the town of Cody and owned a great deal of land surrounding the Shoshone River. In 1904, Cody helped to form the Shoshone project, the nation's first federal water development project to help irrigate the western portion of the basin. The project culminated in the construction of the Buffalo Bill Dam and reservoir. The wealth in the region also attracted outlaws. Butch Cassidy lived near Meeteetse for a while and was arrested at the insistence of local cattle baron Otto Franc and sent to the Wyoming State Penitentiary for horse theft. Following his release, he formed the Wild Bunch gang which operated from the Hole-in-the-Wall area southeast of the Bighorn Basin.
In 1942 one of the nation's ten Japanese American internment camps was located in Park County in the western part of the basin. The camp was named Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, after nearby Heart Mountain. The camp operated until 1945, and at its peak detained over 10,000 internees.
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“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
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““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)