Buffalo Bill

WHO was BUFFALO BILL?

by Catherine Shufelt

There are any number of biographies of Buffalo Bill as well as those he wrote himself. Don Russell's The Lives and Legends of Buffalo Bill seems to be the most exhaustive study available. What follows is a brief chronology of his life events taken mainly from Sarah Blackstone's The Business of Being Buffalo Bill.

William Cody was born in 1846 in Iowa, but moved to Kansas eleven years later. His father died in 1857, and young William was forced to find employment. He worked as a messenger out of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and later was one of the youngest riders for the Pony Express until they were replaced by the telegraph.

In 1864, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the army and fought for two years against the Confederacy. In 1866 he married Louisa Frederici. After being discharged from the army he moved to Salt Creek Valley, Kansas where he soon started serving as a scout and guide. He also used his skills to provide meat for the crews working on the railroad. During this period he fought in as many as sixteen battles with Native Americans, and was hunting guide for the wealthy and famous visiting the West, including Grand Duke Alexis of Russia.

I was also during this period when he met Ned Buntline, author and actor, who wrote a dime novel about Buffalo Bill. Buntline persuaded Cody to come east and see a play based on Cody's adventures. This served to convince Buffalo Bill to try acting. He played himself in the stage play "Scouts of the Prairie," although not a polished actor, he brought to the stage an aura of authenticity that eastern audiences loved, and the play was a great success. Cody then spent the next years splitting his time between acting and scouting, and in 1876 arrived in the west days after Custer's loss at the Little Big Horn.

In 1882 in North Platte, Nebraska, Buffalo Bill realized his dream of staging a large, outdoor exhibition which contained horses, buffalo, and wagon trains. It was part rodeo, part theater, and part circus, and totally successful. For the next thirty years he devoted his life to this show; traveling across the United States, Canada, and Europe. He was received by European royalty, hailed as a hero, and given the Congressional Medal of Honor. He had diverse business interests, and founded the town of Cody, Wyoming as a tourist attraction. He died in 1917.