Located six miles west of Cody, Buffalo Bill Reservoir is a very popular place for local boaters and fishermen. Buffalo Bill State Park encompasses the reservoir of the same name.

In 1898, Buffalo Bill Cody acquired the rights to build canals and irrigate some 60,000 acres of land near the new town of Cody. With passage of the Reclamation Act of 1902, the project was taken over by the Reclamation Service and an enormous concrete-arch dam was begun in 1904, and required five years to finish. It cost nearly $1 million. When finally completed, it was the tallest dam in the world. Seven men died along the way - including a chief engineer - and the first two contractors were forced into bankruptcy as a result of the bad weather, floods, engineering difficulties, and labor strife. A lack of sand and crushed gravel forced them to manufacture it from granite, and 200 lb boulders were hand placed into the concrete to save having to crush more gravel.

Originally named Shoshone Dam, the impoundment was renamed in honor of Buffalo Bill in 1946. The dam irrigates more than 93,000 downstream acres through the Shoshone Reclamation Project, making it one of the only Wyoming irrigation schemes that really benefitted the state's farmers to a large extent.