In its heyday, the American bison ran the continent dark between Canada and the Mexican border. Bison were both sacred and sustenance to the Plains Indians. And in American culture, this noble animal's iconic profile can be seen everywhere - currency, art, flags and anything recalling the Old West.
In its heyday, the American bison ran the continent dark between Canada and the Mexican border. Bison were both sacred and sustenance to the Plains Indians. And in American culture, this noble animal's iconic profile can be seen everywhere - currency, art, flags and anything recalling the Old West.
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But it's still weird running into one at a Scottsdale office park.
The Bison Museum crowns the second floor of Bison Homes' headquarters, south of Bell Road on 91st Street. The business is vacation homes, in places like Show Low and Heber/Overgaard. But the cabinesque upstairs is devoted to the bison. (Don't call them buffalo. Though closely related, the only true buffalo are the African Buffalo and the Water Buffalo - which probably has a stickier, mosquito-infested museum.) Here, bronze sculptures, paintings and prints from artists like Remington, Clymer and Catlin spill out from the museum's wooded confines. The Western-themed displays include Native American clothing made from bison hides; newly-recovered works from the Flagg Family, Scottsdale's premier family of artists; Buffalo Bill memorabilia and room after room dedicated to all things bison. The classic, the quaint and the kitschy.
