"Here she comes, ladies and gentlemen, the world’s number one sharp-shooter! Watch as this frail girl shoots a bullet through a coin tossed in the air before it even hits the ground!" With this kind of enthusiastic introduction, a typical performance of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show would begin; the ensuing extravaganza, which brought the American West to an eager public, became internationally famous.
It all originated in the mind of William Cody, a real live American folk hero, bison hunter, and showman nicknamed Buffalo Bill. He created his show in Nebraska in 1883 during an era when traveling circuses and grand entertainment were emerging on the world stage. Over the next twenty years, the show traveled not only through America, but throughout Europe, bringing the American frontier into the hearts and minds of many people.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show was an entertaining and glamorous combination of myth and popular beliefs about American life in the Wild West. The idea for the show came naturally to Buffalo Bill, because he had lived his whole life on the American frontier. He grew up in Iowa and became an Indian scout for the United States Cavalry, a prospector, and a cowboy. An expert horseman and sharpshooter, he had also been a buffalo hunter and gotten his nickname because of the thousands of buffalo he killed. All these talents and experiences influenced him while he was creating the show.
Buffalo Bill and his company would typically reenact battles between the American soldiers who were helping to colonize the West and the Indian tribes who lived in the Southwest, the Great Plains, and California.
Other reenactments included stagecoach robberies, scenes from the life of a Pony Express rider, and Indian attacks on wagon trains. The most exciting battle portrayed was the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer’s Last Stand. In this battle, one of the biggest and bloodiest battles in the West, the United States Army fought the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Historically, the battle was an amazing show of Indian strength that ended in the dramatic annihilation of George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry. Buffalo Bill would often play the part of Lieutenant Colonel Custer, who died in that battle. These sorts of battles and reenactments became the foundation of the show and were loved by audiences everywhere.
In between these historical reenactments, Buffalo Bill and his group of performers would show off their amazing skills. Stunts involving horses were called "trick riding"; for example, a rider would stand straight up on the back of a galloping horse. Cowboys and performers would also do rope tricks and lasso cattle to the ground. Even more trick riding and rodeo-type entertainment was featured when, in 1893, the show was changed to Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. This change brought the first non-Western element to the show, as horsemen from all over the world came to display their skill and entertain audiences. The international performers hailed from Turkey, Singapore, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, and Arabia; each group brought with them their own unique horses and distinctive costumes.
Among the most popular acts by far, though, were the sharpshooting exhibitions. Performers would show their amazing marksmanship, and of these performers, Miss Annie Oakley was the most famous. She was known as Little Sure Shot because her aim and accuracy with a gun were so amazing she hardly ever missed a target. She could hit coins thrown into the air by audience members or shoot cigarettes from her husband’s lips. One of her most famous tricks involved a deck of cards: from over thirty feet away, she could shoot directly through the center of a card held in a man’s hand. Nobody could match her skill, and Annie Oakley stayed with the show for over 16 years, always giving the crowd a thrilling performance.
These talented entertainers made Buffalo Bill’s Wild West a stunning success around the world. Starting in 1887, Buffalo Bill took the show and his performers, which amounted to almost twelve hundred people, across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. They packed up all their animals, tents, and equipment, made their European debut in London, and even performed a show in honor of Queen Victoria. From London, they went to France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands. The show introduced romantic and glorified depictions of the culture of the American West to European audiences, and the stars of the show became national symbols of the Wild West. Thanks to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the American frontier became very popular with people everywhere.
Although many of the featured acts were authentic horsemen and sharpshooters, the show was still a performance, so the Wild West depicted in the show—the one that people came to love and cherish—was misleading. The battle reenactments and the portrayal of American Indians were not historically accurate and were purposely made to be more entertaining for the general public. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show aimed, not to tell the history of the Wild West, but rather to share its legends and myths.
Still, all of Buffalo Bill’s performers and entertainers were real men and women from the West. It was always real cowboys and real Indians who took the stage, and that was what thrilled the audience. Among the most famous personalities, besides Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley, were various American Indian chiefs such as Sitting Bull, Joseph, and Geronimo. These chiefs were already well known; they were great leaders who had actually fought in many of the battles they recreated for the show. Most audiences were thrilled by the idea of seeing these chiefs in real life, and most Americans and Europeans had never seen an Indian at all. Buffalo Bill used their fame to his advantage, because he knew many whites found them mysterious and somewhat dangerous.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West ended when Buffalo Bill died in 1917. By that time, Buffalo Bill was arguably the most recognizable and famous man in the world. Annie Oakley, Chief Sitting Bull, and the others had also become international superstars. But the show ended not only because of Buffalo Bill’s death, but because the closing of the American West was nearly complete. Gone were the days of wagon trains and Indian raids. The Wild West was rapidly disappearing. Settlements, steam locomotives, and technological progress were taking the place of the West that Buffalo Bill had known. Buffalos were nearly extinct. And the railroads, not cattle drives, were being used to transport livestock. The Indian tribes had all been forced onto reservations, and settlements that had once been wild frontier towns were now communities teeming with middle-class people. The old Wild West was gone, but the public’s interest in American western culture was not. Even today it remains a popular theme for books, music, and movies.