"The Two Bills' Show" printed from a very rare and very old 6ft.x16in. negative.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I have the honor of introducing to your attention a man whose record as a servant of the government, whose skill and daring as a frontiersman, whose place in history as the chief of scouts of the United States Army, whose name as one of the avengers of the lamented Custer, and whose adherence throughout an eventful life to his chosen principle of true to friend and foe, have made him well and popularly known throughout the world ….. The honorable William F. Cody, “Buffalo Bill!” At the announcer’s introduction, he would ride a prancing horse into the ring and proclaim loudly, “Wild West, are you ready? Go!” Thus began thousands of Wild West performances from 1883 until almost World War I, which began in 1914.
Born in 1846 in Iowa, William F. Cody grew up in Kansas. At the age of eleven, he went to work for a freighting firm and later rode for the Pony Express. Bill Cody met such legendary mountain men as Jim Bridger and Kit Carson at Fort Laramie and fought Native Americans (he would have called them Indians) with frontiersman Wild Bill Hickok. The Civil war was in its last years when Bill Cody turned 18. In 1864 and he enlisted in the Seventh Kansas Voluntary Cavalry.
After the war, Bill Cody worked as a scout and guide in the West. He earned the nickname “Buffalo Bill” after being hired to supply buffalo meat to crews working on the Union Pacific Railroad. General Philip H. Sheridan then hired Buffalo Bill to report on the activities and whereabouts of Indian tribes as chief of scouts for the Fifth U.S. Cavalry.
In 1872, Buffalo Bill guided a group of tourists that included the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, the Earl of Dunraven from England, and the editor of the New York Herald, on a hunt. In 1876, he was with the Fifth Cavalry at the Battle of Warbonnet Creek, where he killed a Cheyenne named Yellow Hair, sometimes also called Yellow Hand. This victory was called the “first scalp for Custer,” in retaliation for the defeat and death of General George A. Custer earlier that year in Montana at the battle of Little Big Horn. Buffalo Bill stated later in 1885 that, “The defeat of Custer was not a massacre. The Indians were being pursued by skilled fighters with orders to kill.” For centuries they had been hounded from the Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. They had their wives and little ones to protect and they were fighting for their existence.” These are not the words of a bloodthirsty Indian Killer, a manner in which he is sometimes incorrectly portrayed.
During these years, a man named Edward Z. C. Judson was writing books that dramatized episodes in the American West under the pen name Ned Buntline. These kinds of books, called dime novels because they sold for ten cents, might be compared to today’s paperbacks. Buntline made Buffalo Bill the hero of several dime novels, including a sensationalized version of the hunt with Grand Duke Alexis. He even persuaded Buffalo Bill to appear onstage in melodramatic reenactments of his adventures.
Buffalo Bill eventually broke with Buntline, but he remained in vaudeville (primarily Broadway) for eleven winter seasons, hunting and guiding during the summers. Buffalo Bill’s vaudeville experience no doubt contributed to his instinct for showmanship and his craving for applause. Buntline deserves credit for creating a national audience for Buffalo Bill and readying the country for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. From 1883 to 1908 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West toured the world and introduced it to such famous characters as Annie Oakley and Chief Sitting Bull. Buffalo Bill had several partners over the years including James A. Bailey of Barnum Bailey until his death in 1906.
In 1908 another showman named Gordon W. Lillie, known in the entertainment world as Pawnee Bill purchased a majority of shares in the show from the heirs of Bailey. Lillie recognized the potency of the name “Buffalo Bill,” because as a child, he read dime novels, which idolized Cody, and perhaps saw him along with Wild Bill Hickok and Texas Jack Omohundro, in the play The Scouts of the Plains. Eventually, Lillie became a hero in dime novels, as well as the owner of his own Wild West show. Like many others, Lillie’s entertainment resembled Cody’s show. Pawnee Bill’s wife Miss May Lillie was the “World’s Greatest Lady Horseback Shot.”
Publicity for the combined show, including a volume sold in stands for a dollar entitled Thrilling lives of Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill, detailed the exploits of both men. About Lillie, Thrilling Lives related that as a teenager, he had crossed “a genuine bad man” named “Trigger Jim.” During the first two meetings, Lillie thrashed the outlaw with his fists but the third prompted a gun battle duel wherein Lillie shot and killed the desperado. Other adventures included trapping, befriending Jesse James and his gang, forming a posse and capturing bank robbers, becoming a friend to Native Americans, delivering a contingent of Pawnees to the Buffalo Bill Wild West show in 1883, and leading settlement into Oklahoma. Like Cody, he considered himself a businessman, and Thrilling Lives explained that economic opportunity, as well as adventure, drew him to the West. Visual Imagery stressed the similarity of the two men.
Business skills, experience with tented entertainment, a reputation as a tenacious fighter, and a high level of energy made Cody regard Lillie as a good partner. Pawnee Bill believed that with proper management, the combined shows could turn a profit. Cody expressed his optimism in a letter to a friend: “Lillie is a conservative manager. Always on the job and it won’t be long now until I am on easy avenue again.” The official name for the combined show was “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Far East,” although people simply called it the “Two Bills Show.”
In 1909, the grand review of the combined show included cowboys, Native Americans, Mexican Vaqueros, Singhalese, Dahomeans, Madagascar oxen cavalry, scouts, guides, U.S. Cavalry members, Wild West women, Australian Aborigines, Arabians, Scottish, Japanese, and Russian Cossacks. Wild West acts included the pony express, rescue of the immigrant train, Buffalo Bill Shooting from horseback, the attack on the Deadwood stage, “Battle of Summit Springs,” Johnny Baker’s marksmanship, the train holdup, Mexican lassoers, cowboy fun, and cowboys versus Indians in “Football on Horseback.” Military aspects were the “U.S. Cavalry Artillery Drill” with the Civil War cannons, Devlin’s Zouaves, and an U.S. cavalry drill. The showmen satisfied interest in the recent Russo-Japanese war by hiring Japanese performers to commemorate their victory against the Russians. In addition, Boy Scouts displayed the U.S. flag, and “Auto-Polo” celebrated the internal combustion engine with two automobiles, stripped down to the bare essentials, “wide open” mufflers, and “uncovered” engines. Each vehicle sported a driver
and a helmeted partner who wielded a mallet and struck an oversized white polo ball in an attempt to drive it to the opposite end of the arena.
The “ Far Eastern” section offered “A dream of the Orient” that began with a camel caravan at the base of the pyramids. Tourists, taken captive by a band of Bedouins, waited there for friends to ransom them. When this occurred, the sheik ordered a celebration. “Rossi’s Musical Elephants” pounded out recognizable tunes, and then came a parade of “strange” people from around the globe: Arabian acrobats, “Hindu Fakirs, Illusionists, and Wonder Workers” who performed magical acts. “Australian Boomerang Throwers” demonstrated their amazing weapons, and Singhalese danced to ward off evil spirits. Lillie used phrases such as “romantic, historic, and alluring” to describe the Far East and called those who lived there “picturesque,” “strange,” “unfamiliar,” and “mysterious” peoples who practiced unusual “combats, weird dances and strange religious ceremonies and incantations. The combined show exuded an exotic allurement reminiscent of the midway at the 1893 Columbian Exhibition.
During 1910, the second year of the combined show, the cover of the printed program carried the message “Buffalo Bill Bids You Goodbye,” and inside the publication appeared a ‘Valedictory” by Cody saying: “I here announce the inevitable close of my public career.” He wrote: “this farewell visit will positively be my last appearance in person, in the towns and cities of the present tour.” This brilliant piece of publicity turned Cody’s age and talk about leaving show business into good advertising copy and money. Cody, however, dallied, arguing that farewell tour meant saying good-bye to everyone and visiting all locations on previous tours.
By 1913 problems plagued Cody: money shortages severe enough that he sold his famous Scout’s Rest Ranch in North Platte Nebraska to Lillie. Lawsuits, impractical generosity and spells of bad weather began to take their toll on the show. Tragedy struck in Denver Colorado, in July 1913, when law enforcement officers appeared during a performance and seized the equipment. Buffalo Bill had borrowed $20,000 from Harry Tammen, owner of the Denver Post and Sells –Floto Circus. Tammen knew that breaking up the Cody-Lillie partnership and then contracting Cody for his entertainment would strengthen it. In addition to Cody’s indebtedness, Tammen claimed that Buffalo Bill had agreed to join the Sells-Floto Circus in 1914. It was all legal. Cody had signed such a document, but probably without having read it. So Tammen and his partner, F.G. Bonfils, closed the show with the goal of bringing the patriarch into their own circus. Cody learned about “harpies’ of the law.”
Despite Cody’s and Lillie’s efforts, they saw their property auctioned. Three relative newcomers to the Wild West show business – Joe, Zack, and George Miller of Oklahoma’s 101 Ranch - bought livestock and equipment. The bargain prices pleased them, but Joe Miller wrote: “Was very sorry indeed to see such a grand and big outfit like that finish as it did.” After this Lillie left the Wild West show business and returned to his ranch and business interests in Oklahoma.
Cody appeared in the Sells-Floto Circus during 1914 and 1915. Cody found the circumstances unbearable. Missing a single performance might bring a lawsuit for $100,000, and he believed his employers would avoid paying his full salary. All in all, it was his “all fired darkest summer.” In 1916 he joined the Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch Wild West show, which combined western and military features. To promote U.S. “Military Preparedness” for World War I the Millers included a pageant entitled “Preparedness” in their show and put Cody in charge of “a big realistic military display.” This gave audiences a first hand look at U.S. armed forces and to arouse public interest in the enlargement of the army. With scenes of camp life, deafening displays of weaponry, arenas filled with smoke, and audiences bursting with patriotic fervor, it was “Resplendent Realism of Glorious War” reborn.
Despite a new war to promote, Cody’s career and quality of life deteriorated. The old man had become a commodity shuffled from one show to another. Dexter Fellows, a press agent for Buffalo Bill during his heyday, saw Cody about a year before his death and reported that the seventy-year old man’s greatest fear was of dying during a performance. But the old scout still talked of producing his own entertainment the following year. Cody could not quit his business. He died at the home of his daughter, May Cody Decker, in Denver Colorado, on January 10th, 1917. His death, the result of “a complication of maladies attendant upon old age,” caused an outpouring of grief throughout the nation. A journalist who had followed his career revealed that “a great depression came upon me. To me … he represented the last of the links connecting the present with those glorious frontier days. Buffalo Bill Cody is buried at Lookout Mountain just outside Denver.
This synopsis has been prepared using excerpts from the books,
Wild West Shows, by Paul Reddin
& Wild West Shows Rough Riders and Sure Shots, by Judy Alter