Buffalo Bill Cody standing, 1924 ca, RC2006.076.0439

Being Buffalo Bill

On May 19, 1883, Cody opened his Wild West Show in Omaha, Nebraska and took the show on tour throughout the United States for the next three years. One writer describes Cody, "As Buffalo Bill, he was an integral part of the action and made a grand entrance astride his white charger with flowing hair, sporting a full mustache and goatee. He wore black thigh-high boots, beaded gloves, a fringed jacket, and an oversized Stetson hat. Waving it as he made a sweeping bow to the crowd, he always brought the house to its feet, in anticipation of what was to come. Cody was every ounce the showman, driving a stage at breakneck speed and, with a shotgun, blasting glass balls thrown in the air while riding full gallop on his horse."

Beginning her 17-year tour with the show, the diminutive sharpshooter "Little Sure Shot"Annie Oakley joined Cody in 1884. The successful, well-publicized show drew nearly 1,000,000 fans and net profits reached $100,000 in 1885, the year that Sitting Bull joined the show for a season. In 1887 Cody introduced Europe to the Wild West at the American Exhibition in London, the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee marking the fiftieth anniversary of her accession. Attendance ranged from 20,000 to 40,000 per day. Thereafter, the show would make regular tours to Europe until 1906. In 1893, the Wild West show opened next to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and was a great success.

At the turn of the century Buffalo Bill was probably the most famous and most recognizable man in the world. His fame and legendary status grew to the point that posters appearing in a town in advance of the Wild West, showed only his picture imposed on a charging buffalo; beneath it were just two words: I'M COMING!

By 1907 the Wild West Show was at a turning point when financially it began to falter due to indebtedness. Cody merged his show with that of Pawnee Bill's Great Far East show in 1908 and for a time the combined shows were a financial success. In 1910, he began a series of Farewell tours that took nearly three seasons to complete. By 1913 Cody was overextended financially with bad investments and suffered privately in his health and spirit. He merged his show with the Sells-Floto Circus and established the Col. W. F. Cody Historical Picture Co. to produce short films about the Indian wars. On November 11, 1916 the 70-year old, unhealthy Cody made his final appearance with the Miller Brothers and Arlington 101 Ranch Wild West at Portsmouth, Virginia.

By the end of the first week of the new year, a death watch began for Cody. On January 10, 1917 Cody died of uremic poisoning due to kidney failure in Denver, Colorado. Pawnee Bill, a man that perhaps knew Cody the man as well as anyone could, wrote, "Time smoothes everything. Buffalo Bill died my friend. He was just an irresponsible boy."