Who Are Those Guys? ~ Buffalo Bill Cody

Hunting and killing over 4,000 buffalo earned Buffalo Bill Cody his nickname, and his status as an Old West legend was cemented with his traveling Wild West show. He was born William Frederick Cody on February 26, 1846 in Le Claire, Iowa Territory.

He worked for a freight company as a messenger and wrangler before trying his luck as a prospector in the Pikes Peak gold rush in 1859. The next year, at age 14, Cody joined the Pony Express, fitting the bill for the advertised position: "skinny, expert riders willing to risk death daily." Cody later served in the American Civil War, and in 1867 he began buffalo hunting (to feed constructions crews building railroads), which would give him the nickname that would define him forever. His own assessment puts the number of buffalo he killed at 4,280, in just over a year and a half.

In 1868, Cody returned to his work for the Army as chief of scouts (and his ongoing work with the military garnered him the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1872, which was subsequently stripped and then reinstated), all the while becoming a national folk hero thanks to the dime-novel exploits of his alter ego, "Buffalo Bill.” In late 1872, Cody went to Chicago to make his stage debut in The Scouts of the Prairie, one of Ned Buntline’s original Wild West shows (Buntline was also the author of the Buffalo Bill novels). The next year, "Wild Bill" Hickok joined the show, and the troupe toured for ten years.

In 1883, Cody founded his own show, "Buffalo Bill's Wild West," a circus-like extravaganza that toured widely for three decades in the United States and later in Europe. Besides Buffalo Bill himself, the Wild West show starred sharpshooter Annie Oakley and, for one run, Chief Sitting Bull.

A champion of women’s rights and a lifelong soldier, Buffalo Bill Cody was more than just a Wild West showman and buffalo hunter. But his larger-than-life persona, at times real and at others fictitious, is what lives on in the hearts and minds of fans of the frontier West.

Several of his European tours were filmed and released as films making him the first European western star.

Buffalo Bill died in Denver, Colorado on January 10, 1917.

CODY, William (aka Buffalo Bill, Buffalo Bill Cody) (William Frederick Cody) [William Frederick Cody) [2/26/1846, Le Claire, Iowa Territory, U.S.A. – 1/10/1917, Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.] – producer, theater, film actor, married to  Louisa Frederici (Louisa Maud Frederici) [1943-1921] (1866-1917) father of Arta Lucille Cody [1866–1904], Kit Carson Cody [1870–1876], Orra Maude Cody [1872–1883], Irma Louise Cody [1883–1918].

The Arrival of Buffalo Bill in Rome – 1906

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West – 1906 (Buffalo Bill)

Mystères d'archives: 1910 Buffalo Bill – 2009 (Buffalo Bill) [archive footge]

Buffalo Bill: The Conquest of the East – 2012 (Buffalo Bill) [archive footage]