The Center includes the Buffalo Bill Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum, the Cody Firearms Museum, the Draper Natural History Museum.
The Center’s collection of western art and artifacts fulfill "Buffalo Bill" Cody's vision of telling the story of the American west. Initially begun in a log cabin, today’s center encompasses five museums and a research library. The museum is overlooked by a massive bronze sculpture of Cody, "The Scout" and collections include historical and contemporary art.
The Whitney Collection includes original paintings, sculptures, and prints that trace artistic interpretations of the West from the early nineteenth century to today. Artists featured include George Catlin, Alfred Jacob Miller, Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Alexander Phimister Proctor, William R. Leigh, Joseph Henry Sharp, N.C. Wyeth, and many others.
The collection also includes contemporary western art. Harry Jackson, James Bama, Deborah Butterfield, and Fritz Scholder are represented with many other artists of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Artistic masterworks and exciting modern views of the land, people, and wildlife of the West in the Whitney Western Art Museum encourage connections across culture and time. The thematic display presents an innovative way of interpreting American art of the West that encourages discovery and creativity, and presents the artwork in a tranquil, contemplative space.