The 19th Century American west was ablaze with tall tails of cowboys and indians, showdowns and shootouts, barroom brawls, and Custers Last Stand. It was an era of rifles and six guns blasting away in a hail of blazing gunfire between outlandish outlaw gangs and hot pursuit posse's. Outlaws and lawdogs were colorful characters and their exploits filled the pages of pulp magazines, dime novels and newspapers that in turn were devoured by a hungy populace along the the eastern seaboard and major cities of the young country that was fast becoming civilized and settled.
The Springfield rifle helped win the west, but, so did one particular sidearm. The Revolver...which by the way, was not the name of a Beatles album at the time, but, a Sam Colt weapon of High Noon destruction.It was the Navy Colt, the gun of choice for machismo and survival in a land of high plains drifters and grifters, hot headed gamblers, and deadheaded drunks who would rather kill or be killed than to suffer an insult. "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me" was not the way of the cowboy! Call a callous cowboy chickenshit and watch the hot lead fly.
It was the fading age of the fabricated dime novel exploits of Wild Bill Hickock and Wyatt Earp. By 1883, William Cody began developing the concept for the wild west shows he would become famous for in order to cash in on and to perservere in preserving the history and excitement of the era...Billy the Kid and Jesse James had already been gunned down and locked and loaded in their place in American western history. Cody knew it was fading fast but astute enough in that Nebraska cornhusker way to realize that residents of the urban east coast had never experienced the real west in all it's wild gory glory and were hungry as hell for it, thanks to the dime novels and exaggerated newspaper reports of the day.
William Cody was born and bred where the buffalo roam on the blustery winter plains of Nebraska in February of 1846. As he matured he held jobs as a buffalo hunter for the railroads as they expanded ever westward, army scout, Pony Express Rider and Indian fighter. His skill with a buffalo rifle was legendary and as a scout and guide he had no peer. He became famous as a frontiersman and his fame spread like a Colorado forest fire blazing a trail to the attention of Ned Buntline in the East who wrote a dime novel about "Buffalo Bill" (later the Beatles would immortalize him in parody as "Bungalow Bill"
Buntlines novel was so successful it was turned into a theatrical stage production and traveled the coastal circuit preceding the Jewish Borsht Belt by 50 years! In time Cody was hired to play himself in the production and eventually the showbiz bug bit him on the ass and he started his won stage troop and group.
In 1873 he teamed up with a gent named Texas Jack (It seems like every third cowboy in the west was named "Texas" something or other or "Montana" - no one to my knowledge was ever named the Pennsylvania Kid or Doc Ohio!) The first play they produced was called "Scouts of the Plains" and they got Wild Bill Hickock who was just three years away from the Deadmans Hand in Deadwood thereby becoming the first famous Deadwood deadhea...How grateful he was, we'll never know. Wild Bill left the show in 1876, and Texas left the show in 1882, just before Cody formed the famous Wild West Shows he would become associated with for the rest of his life..he was the Bill Graham of the Wild Fillmore West and although he didn't have Janis Joplin perform on stage, he did have female superstar sharpshooter...Annie Oakley, among other "stars" of the period. These shows, by Bill and imitators were popular until 1914 just as WWI broke out..Over There, Over There! It was now the new age of vaudeville and George M. Cohan!
Bill's shows kicked off on home turf in Omaha, Nebraska and along with PT Barnum in the late 19th Century were the "greatest showmen on Earth" If we would have a real Jules Verne Rocket in those days, there is no doubt the Wild West Shows would have wowed the crowds and crowned heads of the planet mars and the Amazon audiences of Venus.
The shows traveled not only the United States but overseas in Europe as well with a cadre of indians, cowboys, wild animals, and "outlaws" who engaged in role play stagecoach robberies, indian battles including a re-enactment of Custers Last Stand and shoots outs. Yes, there were a few train holdups as well..gotta have that! There was a sparkling universe of showmanship and gun prowess displays and at one point included the Congress of Rough Riders with future Bullmoose President Teddy Roosevelt leading the big parade more brash then any 76 trombones.
In the Custer sequence, Custer and his men are all killed as was told by history. Buffalo Bill however inserted himself into history and rides too late the rescue..therefore..it can't be called a rescue now can it, but in true Buffalo Brando bravado, Bill avenges Custer by killing the indian Yellow Knife.
There were as many as 1,200 participants in these shows and lots of women as well as men took part in the Buffalo Bill buffalo bullshit of bent history. Annie Oakly won a marksmenship or rather, markswomanship contest at 15 and married the man she beat who was also her manager for the next 16 years she spent in showbiz. Chief Sitting Bull a close friend of Bill's and also in the show nicknamed her "Little Sure Shot" Calamity Jane was also a part of the show until 1902 when she was fired for being a little too authentically "wild west" for drinking and fighting. Other females were horse experts and singers and dancers. Other native Americans who were friends of Bills and also performers at one time or anther included Geronimo, Chief Joseph and Rains in the Face who is said to have actually killed Custer at Little Big Horn...the "I Killed Custer" claim is probably as true as the fisherman who tells the tall fish tale of the one that got away...
In time other wild west shows proliferated around the turn of the 20th Century. They were money in the bank for enterprising empresarios of all things western from a gentleman named Pawnee Bill to Buckskin Joe. Women got into the act as well with traveling wild west shows and the most notable were Luella Fish, and also the Kemp Sisters.
The changing economy helped to devasate the traveling wild shows and other shows on the road and by 1913..Bill was bankrupt. Just prior to this development Bill was going broke and sold the show to two shysters and Bill became merely one of their attractions and an employee himself. The show eventually closed and it was all over. but on the horizon it was a new age...the film industry was starting to crank up and crank out Westerns including the very first western...The Great Train Robbery in 1903. Subsequent westerns were made and had consultants on the set the likes of which were a who's who of the old west...Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson...the wild west in reality was long gone..but the survivors of the real west were on hand to help Hollywood perpetuate the image..the myth.. the legend...and it all started with Buffalo Bill Cody and Ned Buntline and his dime novels.