Buffalo Bill's Black Fur Cowboy Hat

➼ History & Context

“Buffalo Bill” is one of the most well-known figures of the American West, a cowboy and a wildly successful showman who toured across America and Europe, bringing a facsimile of the Wild West to eager fans everywhere.

Born William Frederick Cody in 1846, his first feat of bravery came before his 11th birthday when he rode 30 miles in one night to warn his father, anti-slavery activist Isaac Cody, about a planned ambush by pro-slavery men. Sadly his father soon died of injuries he’d sustained even before that avoided event – stab wounds received during a speech he was making that never quite healed properly – and Cody had to get to work at just 11 years old, carrying messages up and down a freight carrier train as a “boy extra.”

Cody became a scout for the Army on a trip to Utah, a Pony Express rider at 15, and myriad other jobs, though some say he exaggerated for publicity, served the Union in the American Civil War, and most famously worked as a civilian scout for the Army during the American Indian / Frontier Wars, for which he received the Medal of Honor in 1872. Among his numerous accomplishments, he once rode as a lone dispatch courier over 350 miles across hostile territory in under 58 hours, including an escape from capture.

Though Cody initially earned the name Buffalo Bill through his work supplying railroad construction workers with buffalo meat, he cemented his sole claim to the moniker through an intense and infamous eight-hour competition with William Comstock – a rival to the Buffalo Bill name.

When Cody was 23 he met Ned Buntline, who published stories of his exploits and began Cody’s journey to legendary status. Buntline also got Cody his first taste of showmanship, producing one of the original Wild West shows, The Scouts of the Prairie. Cody and his friends starred in several shows until he founded his own, Buffalo Bill's Wild West, in 1883 to immediate acclaim.

Every show began with a parade on horseback in which riders from cultures across the world would show off their cultural heritage and dress, followed by shows, feats of skills, & reenactments, and historical figures from the West often joined the show, like Sitting Bull, Annie Oakley, and Calamity Jane.

The show was a huge success and bought Cody a huge ranch in Nebraska, before becoming so enamored of one spot in Wyoming that he founded a town there in 1895 – Cody, Wyoming. He opened a hotel, started a newspaper, and formed the TE Ranch where people could come to experience the West.

When Buffalo Bill died in 1917, his wife & family buried him where he had asked to be buried – on Lookout Mountain in Golden, Colorado – but the people of Cody were so determined that he should be brought to the town he had founded that they mounted a body-napping attempt. His wife Louisa heard about their plans and wrapped his gravesite in fencing and guards to prevent the theft. Mystery reigns, however, as the people of Cody claim they had already stolen his body en route! Both places now claim to be the burial site of the legend of Buffalo Bill, and we may never know the truth.