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Buffalo Bill’s show business career began on sharp shooting (with pistols and rifles), wing
December 17, 1872, in Chicago. He was twenty-six years shooting (with a shotgun), roping, and
old. Scouts of the Prairie was a drama created by Buntline, riding. Outlaws, gunslingers, Native
who appeared in it with Cody and another well-known Americans, and ex-cavalry riders all found a
scout, “Texas Jack” Omohundro (see their photo on the home in the show, their backgrounds and
right side of this page). The show was a success, with critics exploits embellished to create memorable
making note of Cody’s manner of charming the audience characters and storylines for re-enactments.
and the realism he brought to his performance. It was “Frontier shows in which real frontier
obvious by audience response that Buffalo Bill was a heroes re-enacted their actual deeds were
showman with something new and exciting to share. unique to the American theater of the nine-
The following season Cody organized his own teenth century,” wrote Phillip Dray, author of
troupe, the Buffalo Bill Combination. The troupe’s
show Scouts of the Plains included Buffalo Bill, Texas
Jack, and Cody’s old friend “Wild Bill” Hickok.
Wild Bill and Texas Jack eventually left the show, but
Cody continued staging a variety of plays, including
ones that were known as “border dramas” (small-scale
Wild West shows featuring genuine frontier characters,
real Indians, fancy shooting, and sometimes horses if
there was space), until 1882, the year Cody conceived of
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. It was time for Cody to
expand his show from a small stage to an extravaganza Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill
the size of a small town. original linen-backed William F. Cody
1912 poster, Pawnee Bill Film Co. In the
Preserving the Frontier Life early 1900s, Walter Barnsdale started a
“traveling moving picture show” company
Cody’s motivation to produce the show was to that played at carnivals and circuses.
preserve the Western way of life that he grew up with Presenting more than 100 reels of films
and loved. Driven by his ambition to keep this way of projected with some of the best lighting
life from disappearing, he turned his “real life adventure equipment available (run by an electric
into the first and greatest outdoor western show.” generator), Barnsdale brought the show to
people who couldn’t get to the city.
The first performance of what was then called the Selling on eBay for $3,500.
“Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie Exhibition”
took place in Omaha, Nebraska the following year. It
was an outdoor spectacle with hundreds of performers, as well as live buffalo, elk, cattle,
and other animals. This was something new with the ability to both entertain and educate
as Cody, the P.T. Barnum of the genre, saw it.
According to Paul Fees, former curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum, Cody used his the- Three Legends of the West, Wild Bill
ater experience to help promote his shows and himself. He was skilled in the use of his fame Hickok, Texas Jack Omohundro, and Buffalo
and credibility as a Westerner to garner Bill Cody. Photographic reproduction print
fame, publicizing his adventures, for sale at Etsy for $18.50
colorful and action-packed poster
advertising, and lending star The Fair Chase, The Epic Story
appeal with an aura of authentic- of Hunting in America.
ity to his shows. Most important- “Like the reality TV of our
ly, Cody gave the show a dramat- own time, the shows appealed
ic narrative structure by creating largely to low- or middle-
characters and embellishing brow audiences that enjoyed the
historical events that made them frisson of seeing authentic
exciting and memorable. Given his pugilists, politicians, feathered
background and reputation, his inter- Buffalo Bill “Pawnee warriors, or border men such as
pretations of the West as a place of Bill watch fob” selling Cody and (Wild Bill) Hickok
for $210 on eBay
glory and adventure were accepted as perform, for the most part
genuine and authentic, especially by awkwardly, as themselves. The
audiences with no first-hand knowledge. payoff was the chance to see dramatizations
of real-world events portrayed by the non-
Taking the Wild West by Storm actors who had in fact carried them out,
who wore the same clothes, spoke the actual
The “Wild West” traveling show promised names of the Indians and criminals they’d
“genuine illustrations of life on the plains,” killed, and, often used as stage props, the
with spine-tingling reenactments of buffalo genuine guns, knives, hatchets, or other
hunts, Pony Express rides, stagecoach attacks, implements involved.”
and, in later years, Custer’s Last Stand. Traveling with a show the size of Wild
Performances also featured scores of cowboys, West—both in the United States and
scouts, buffalo hunters, and Cheyenne, Europe—was a logistical nightmare and a
Pawnee, and Lakota men and women dressed huge expense. By the late 1890s, the show
in their native costumes and uniforms. carried as many as five hundred cast and staff
In addition to wild animals, battle re-enact- members, including twenty-five cowboys, a
ments, eques-trian exhibitions, and parades, dozen cowgirls, and one hundred Indian men,
the Wild West show featured star performers women, and children, all needing to be fed
Buffalo Bill circa 1871 demonstrating such skills as bronco riding, three hot meals a day. Performers lived in wall

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