by So I thought Buffalo Bill was a train robber or some other kind of wild west outlaw, but mostly didn’t think anything much about him at all.
But that didn’t stop us from visiting the Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park Museum in North Platte, Nebraska, which is how I learned just how wrong I was. Plus we added another state to our States Visited List!
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody (1846 – 1917) had an interesting and honorable career, working for an early version of the Pony Express and later serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. His job to provide buffalo meat for Kansas Pacific Railway construction workers is where he earned his nickname “Buffalo Bill,” as he was wildly successful at it.
But it was his “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and Congress of Rough Riders of the World” that really cemented his reputation. Founded in 1886, the circus-like production toured the United States and Europe for three decades. It was a real spectacle, featuring female sharpshooters like Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, Native Americans, and cowboys, acting out stagecoach robberies, shootouts, Custer’s Last Stand, and much more. Apparently, Bill was forward-thinking, and paid the women and non-white members of his troop equally with the white men. However, his depictions of Native Americans as the attackers and instigators has come under some criticism (though the Native Americans who worked in the shows at the time held that Bill treated them better than most white people, which is something, at least).
Due to his success in entertaining, he purchased 160 acres in North Platte, Nebraska, in 1878 to begin cattle ranching. The property, named “Scout’s Rest Ranch,” eventually grew to 4,000 acres (some of which was farmland), and included the 18-room Second Empire home that Cody’s family lived in from 1886 to 1913. It was the largest house in the area, and the locals referred to as “The Mansion on the Prairie.” It cost $3,900 to build, and another $2,100 to furnish.
Bill used the house to rest between tours, but his wife Louisa had her own house in town. Apparently Bill had a little trouble with fidelity (once when Louisa surprised him with a visit in Chicago, she was led to “Mr. and Mrs. Cody’s suite” — ouch) — and the marriage was turbulent. Bill filed for divorce in 1904 after 38 years of marriage, but after a contentious battle the judge found that “incompatibility was not grounds for divorce,” and married they would stay. Several years later they managed to reconcile.
The state of Nebraska purchased the home and 25 acres in 1964, running it as a tourist attraction. Buffalo Bill has become a legend, living on in books, songs, theatrical work, TV shows and film, not to mention the town of Cody that he founded in Wyoming in 1895. And of course, the Buffalo, N,Y football team is named after him, in spite of the city’s name having nothing to do with Buffalo Bill.
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