101. Henry J. Nicholas to Richard H. Scott, March 24, 1905, Hon. Richard H. Scott Collection, No. 2627, Box 1, Correspondence, AHC.
INTERLUDE: ADELE VON OHL PARKER
1. Robert Hull, “Adele Von Ohl Parker: ‘Something of a Gypsy,’ ” Cleveland Plain Dealer Magazine, Nov. 4, 1973, 24–39.
2. Hull, “Adele Von Ohl Parker.”
3. Adele Von Ohl Parker to “My Dears,” Jan. [no day], 1955, in MS 6 WFC Collection VI:B, BBWW Personnel, Box 1/4, BBHC.
4. “Noted Rider with Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, Here,” Cody Enterprise, Aug. 25, 1955, p. 1, clipping in MS 6 WFC Collection VI:B, BBWW Personnel, Box 1/4, BBHC.
5. “Wagon Hit, Woman Is Heroine,” unattributed clipping, n.p., n.d., in MS 6 WFC Collection VI:B, BBWW Personnel, Box 1/4, BBHC.
6. Hull, “Adele Von Ohl Parker,” 24–25.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: END OF THE TRAIL
1. “BBWW Routes, 1883–1916,” BBHC; Russell, Lives and Legends, 441–43.
2. Russell, Lives and Legends, 444.
3. Russell, Lives and Legends, 443.
4. See “Old Scout Is Writing Life Story,” Sacramento Bee, Oct. 1, 1907, p. 5.
5. BBWW 1907 program (Buffalo, NY: Courier Co., 1907), WH 72, Box 2/39, DPL.
6. BBWW 1907 program, WH 72, Box 2/39, DPL.
7. “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West ‘Live!’ Original Film Footage, 1898–1912,” Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, WY, 1998, 15 min., videocassette.
8. BBWW 1907 program, 11; Russell, Lives and Legends, 445.
9. Tompkins, West of Everything, esp. 23–45; Lee Clark Mitchell, Westerns: Making the Man in Fiction and Film (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 113–19.
10. Mitchell, Westerns, 28–54.
11. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, 15.
12. Like his claim at the town of Cody itself, Buffalo Bill’s claim at Ralston was now split with the Burlington Railroad’s Lincoln Land Company. C. H. Morrill to C. A. Guernsey, July 1, 1908, and H. N. Savage to Chief Engineer, U.S. Reclamation Service, Dec. 6, 1905, RG 115, GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), FARC-Denver.
13. Thus, when the Mormon stake downstream filed for a water permit, Cody scribbled anxious letters from California and, later, from Britain urging against its approval. Repeatedly, the showman recommended that the government or a private individual take up the challenge: “If you know of any private individuals who wish to build the canal, I am perfectly willing to turn my interests over to them as no one is more anxious to see the canal completed than myself; but when the canal is built it should be started in the canyon above Cody so as to furnish water to the bench lands opposite the town and around the foot of Hart Mountain.” But “if the Mormons or anyone else is permitted to take out canals to irrigate cheaply the lower end of this tract of land it will not pay the government or any private individuals to take a canal out of the canyon.” WFC to Acting Governor Fenimore Chatterton, May 24, 1903, Gen’l Correspondence—Incoming, Acting Governor Fenimore Chatterton, RG 1.16, Box 2, WSA.
14. The buildings going up alongside the railroad at the location known as Camp Colter were merely “a temporary headquarters” midway between the stations of Garland and Ralston, which were eleven miles apart and therefore remote from survey crews working between them. “No definite arrangements have been made for townsite at this point, although it would seem a proper location for one.” Chief Engineer to Hon. F. W. Mondell, Aug. 8, 1906; F. W. Mondell to F. H. Newell, Aug. 3, 1906; Director to Secretary of Interior, Sept. 13, 1907, all in RG 115, GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), FARC-Denver.
15. WFC to Theodore Roosevelt, March 10, 1905, in RG 115, GAPR (Shoshone), 1902– 1919, Entry 3, Box 912, Folder 958-A, NARA-RMR.
16. C. H. Morrill to C. A. Guernsey, July 1, 1908, GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, FARC-Denver. Under the terms of the reclamation act, the government irrigated 278 farms by June 30, 1910; those farms covered a total of 16,552 acres. The town site of Powell opened with lots for sale on May 25, 1909, and by June 30, 1910, fifty-nine lots had been sold. U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Ninth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 1909–1910 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), 317.
17. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909, GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, FARC-Denver.
18. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909.
19. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909.
20. Between 1902 and 1909, the Reclamation Service spent $3,678,000 on the Shoshone Project alone. See U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Eighth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 1908–1909 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1910), 21.
21. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909.
22. Director to Secretary of the Interior, Sept. 13, 1907, GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, NARA-RMR.
23. Petition to Jeremiah Ahern, District Engineer, May 23, 1908, in GAPR (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, NARA-RMR.
24. U.S. Department of the Interior, Eighth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 214.
25. For the Progressive Era, see Eric Rauchway, Murdering McKinley, 89–96, 184–96; Hofstadter, Age of Reform; Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920; Pisani, Water and American Government 1–122.
26. White, “It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own,” 523; Pisani, Water and the American State, 272–95.
27. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 176; Russell, Wild West, 32, and Lives and Legends, 296–98.
28. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 193.
29. Russell, Lives and Legends; Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 186–90.
30. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 186, 191; for oriental imagery and sensualism, see Lears, Fables of Abundance, 103–4.
31. Quoted in Yost, Buffalo Bill, 363.
32. For “Buffalo Bill Back to the New West,” see Frank Winch, “How Buffalo Bill Is to Spend His Time,” n.d., MS 6 Series IA, Box 119, BBHC. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 199.
33. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 199.
34. See E. J. Ewing. “Operations of the Cody-Dyer Milling Co. and Campo Bonito and Southern Belle Properties, Oracle, Arizona, 1912–1916, and a History of the Properties,” May 3, 1945, MS 6 I:G, Box 1/17, BBHC.
35. WFC to JCG, March 13, 1903, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/19, BBHC. See also WFC to JCG, April 12, 1903, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/19, BBHC.
36. He owned 157,000 shares of the company, and gave thousands more to his sisters and to Louisa. See stockholder certificates in MS 6 I:G, Box 1, BBHC. Figures on Cody’s investments are hard to come by. Lillie said that Cody claimed expenses of $125,000 to $150,000. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 192.
37. For seeking investment, see WFC to My Dear Old Pard, Sept. 7, 1911, copy in MS 6 I:G, Box 1, “1911,” BBHC; for complaints about managers, see WFC to My Dear Getchell, Oct. 9, 1911, copy in MS 6 I:G, Box 1, “1911,” BBHC.
38. See the map in E. Hobart Molson to Richard I. Frost, Feb. 15, 1974, in MS 6, I:G, Box 1, BBHC.
39. WFC to Noble Getchell, Oct. 13, 1911, copy in MS 6 I:G, Box 1, “1911,” BBHC.
40. WFC to Dear Pard, Sept. 20, 1911, copy in MS 6 I:G, Box 1, “1911,” BBHC.
41. According to Lillie, Getchell once persuaded Cody to send him $25,000 to buy out rival claims that had cost Getchell a total of $2,500. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 192.
42. Eugene Sawyer to Mother, Feb. 6, 1912, MS 360, Arizona Historical Society, copies in MS 6 I:G, Box 1/36, BBHC.
43. “Operations of the Cody-Dyer Milling Co.”; Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 192.
44. See WFC to JCG, June 14, 1913; WFC to JCG, July 10, 1914; WFC to JCG, Aug. 22, 1915; in Foote, Letters from Buffalo Bill, 74–76. In 1918, soon after Cody’s death, courts transferred the mines to heirs of Barney Link, a poster printer to whom Cody left an unpaid debt of $10,000. Ewing, “Operations of the Cody-Dyer Milling Co.”
45. See Bess Isbell
to W. J. Walls, Feb. 10, 1906, accession no. 74.0360, and 74.0361; also, WFC to W. J. Walls, Feb. 10, 1906, accession no. 74.0362; WFC to Judge Walls, Feb. 28, 1906, no. 74.0368, in BBM.
46. WFC to Dear Ones, March 28, [1910], MS 6 Series I:B, Box 1/3, BBHC; Yost, Buffalo Bill, 362.
47. Russell says they were reconciled on July 28, 1910, after William Cody visited when the Wild West was in the area, but cites no evidence. Lives and Legends, 435; also Yost, Buffalo Bill, 365. The problem with the account is that the Wild West show was in South Bend, Indiana, on that date, and nowhere near North Platte at any time during that season. “BBWW Show Routes, 1883–1916,” BBHC.
48. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 206.
49. Shirley, Pawnee Bill, 207.
50. Russell, Lives and Legends, 452–57; Gene Fowler, Timberline: A Story of Bonfils and Tammen (Garden City, NY: Garden City Books, 1933), 371–81.
51. WFC to JCG, May 27, 1915, in Foote, Letters from Buffalo Bill, 76.
52. WFC to JCG, May 27, 1915, in Foote, Letters from Buffalo Bill, 76; Karl King, quoted in Don Russell, Lives and Legends, 459.
53. Oglala Council to William H. Taft, Dec. 23, 1911, RG 75, Box 162, 047 Fairs and Expositions, BBWW Bankruptcy, Folder 1 of 2, NARA-CPR.
54. See the extensive contracts in RG 75, Box 162, 047 Fairs and Expositions, BBWW Bankruptcy, Contracts, 1912–13, NARA-CPR.
55. Superintendent to Samuel D. Oliphant, Jan. 17, 1916, and Superintendent to Samuel D. Oliphant, Nov. 16, 1916; names from list of payees in Samuel D. Oliphant to Major John R. Brennan, Jan. 13, 1916, all in 047 Fairs and Expositions, Box 162, BBWW Bankruptcy, 1913, RG 75, NARA-CPR; also Kevin Brownlow, The War, the West, and the Wilderness (New York: Knopf, 1979), 233.
56. Moses, Wild West Shows and the Images of American Indians, 227–48.
57. Moses, Wild West Shows, 234.
58. Brownlow, The War, the West, and the Wilderness, 232–33.
59. Moses, Wild West Shows 239.
60. Brownlow, The War, the West, and the Wilderness, 228. See the discussion of this matter in Moses, Wild West Shows, 238–48.
61. Franklin K. Lane to Frederick G. Bonfils, Aug. 28, 1913, RG 48, Department of the Interior, Office of the Secretary, Central Classified File 1907–1936, 5-2, “Indians, Moving Pictures,” copies in WFC Collection, MS 6 I:A, Biographical Box 2/24, BBHC.
62. Russell, Lives and Legends, 461; Brownlow, The War, the West, and the Wilderness, 233, 275–83.
63. Quoted in Walsh and Salsbury, Making of Buffalo Bill, 352.
64. Russell, Lives and Legends, 461; Walsh and Salsbury, Making of Buffalo Bill, 353–54.
65. Russell, Lives and Legends, 464; Buffalo Bill (Himself) and 101 Ranch 1916 Program, n.p., BBHC.
66. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, 220–21. Benjamin refers to the historical tradition conveyed in the authentic as its “aura,” a term I avoid because of its astrological, New Age associations.
67. For a sampling of the range of Buffalo Bill memorabilia, see Wojtowicz, Buffalo Bill Collector’s Guide, esp. 187–261.
68. I am relying, heavily, on Neil Harris, Humbug, 230–31; and Roger D. Abrahams, “Trickster, Our Outrageous Hero,” in Our Living Traditions: An Introduction to American Folklore, ed. Tristram Peter Coffin (New York: Basic Books, 1968), 171–72.
69. Yost, Buffalo Bill, 411; Louisa Frederici Cody and Riley Cooper, Memories of Buffalo Bill.
70. Harry Webb, “Buffalo Bill’s Goodbye,” typescript, n.d., BBHC.
71. Webb, “Buffalo Bill’s Goodbye,” 46.
72. Moses, Wild West Shows, 251.
73. Walsh and Salsbury, Making of Buffalo Bill, 359.
74. “Col. Cody’s Last Year,” narrative in William Cody Bradford Scrapbook, BBHC.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book began as a social history of the Wild West show, but I soon realized that cast members’ accounts of life in the show were so inflected with the mythology of William Cody himself that it became impossible to evaluate them without first understanding him. The resulting project took much longer than I anticipated, and it took me much further afield, too. I have many debts, and I know the list below is incomplete.
I have been the beneficiary of much institutional support, beginning with faculty research grants at the University of San Diego and the University of California, Davis. Early on, my research received a major boost from a summer seminar, “Social Historians Write Biography,” sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities at the Newberry Library (ably taught by James Grossman and Elliott Gorn, who gave me some of the first and most helpful advice on following Cody’s trail). I subsequently was honored to receive a W. M. Keck Fellowship at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, and a fellowship from the Albert and Lois P. Graves Fund, which generously financed my research trip to France and Britain. A Fred Garlow Grant from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center provided valuable travel support for my research at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, during which I also was treated to the center’s wonderful hospitality at the Paul Stock House. A University of California President’s Research Fellowship in the Humanities, a fellowship from the UC Davis Humanities Institute, and sabbatical leave from UC Davis provided me with time to begin drafting this book.
Portions of chapter 9 first appeared in “Cody’s Last Stand: Masculine Anxiety, the Custer Myth, and the Frontier of Domesticity in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show,” Western Historical Quarterly 35 (Spring 2003): 49–69 (copyright Western History Association; reprinted by permission). Portions of Chapter 11 and Chapter 12 appeared in “Buffalo Bill Meets Dracula: William F. Cody, Bram Stoker, and the Frontiers of Racial Decay,” American Historical Review 107: 4 (October 2002): 1124–57. My thanks to both publications for allowing me use of the material here.
At Alfred A. Knopf, Jane Garrett, my editor, recognized the value of the project early on and has been a strong supporter ever since. I am indebted also to Emily Molanphy for the prompt and cheerful editorial assistance, and Susanna Sturgis for the excellent copyediting.
Out in Cody, I owe special thanks to Paul Fees, a scholar as distinguished by his remarkable generosity as by his vast knowledge of Buffalo Bill Cody and the Far West. Time and again, Paul steered me to sources and offered the benefit of his own Cody scholarship, and his sense of humor, too. Our talks alone made my annual visits to the town of Cody well worth the trip.
Arthur Amiotte welcomed me to his home, where he shared family history, as well as documents and photographs of adventurous ancestors who went to Europe with Buffalo Bill. My thanks to him for generosity with time and his family heritage, and also for his insights and our many great conversations during the writing of this book.
With many others, I mourned the passing of Calvin Jumping Bull shortly before this book was completed. I am indebted to Calvin for sharing the history of his family’s involvement with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and also for explaining the show’s long-term legacy for Lakota performers. My thanks to him for the stories, and the wisdom.
At research libraries and archives I discovered not only great staff, but good friends. At the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Juti Winchester and Bob White were extremely helpful and encouraging; Frances Clymer and Ann Marie Donoghue fielded numerous questions and, late in the game, urgent requests for lots of photographs. Steve Frieson was enthusiastic in his assistance with materials in the Buffalo Bill Museum, in Golden, Colorado. Bruce Hanson and Janice Prater at the Denver Public Library were always welcoming and extremely helpful. On this as on several other projects over the last fifteen years, George Miles has steered me through the wonders of western history at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. I remain grateful for his help and his friendship. Alan Perry, at the National Archives branch in Kansas City, offered much assistance and made certain I did not miss out on his hometown’s barbeque ribs. I have also been fortunate to work with the staff of the Nebraska State Historical Society, the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and the National Archives reg
ional center in Denver, Colorado. In Europe, I received much assistance from the staff of the Kelvin Grove Museum, Glasgow, the staff of the British Library, London, and Sabine Barnicaud, at the Palais du Roure, Avignon, France.
In the UK, thanks to John and Noni Cordingley, Jeremy and Rosemary Cordingley, Mark and Sally Hobbs, Alan and Elizabeth Megahey, Ken and Polly Anderson, and Karina Upton and Paul Kelland for the support and hospitality. On the Continent, Rupert and Josiene Buxton not only opened their home, but saved my research agenda with a spate of last-minute travel bookings that got me across France, and in time.
At the University of San Diego, where I was teaching when I began this project, Jim Gump first proposed that I tackle Buffalo Bill. His advice was strongly seconded by Iris Engstrand and Lisa Cobbs Hoffman. My thanks to all.
Colleagues and friends have been unstinting in their willingness to read drafts of chapters, to comment on the work, and to listen to my (often lengthy) musings. Phil Deloria provided thoughtful criticism and coaching on cultural history, nineteenth-century America, and William Cody’s career. Early in the work, Mike Saler pointed me toward issues of race decay, national expansion, and popular entertainments, and gave me a sounding board for many of the ideas which found their way into the final work (and talked me out of some that did not). Stephen Arata, Steve Aron, Ann Fabian, Todd DePastino, Mark Fiege, Dan Flores, Karen Halttunen, Eric Rauchway, Catherine Robson, David Simpson, and Elliott West read draft chapters and dispensed helpful criticism and advice. Alan Taylor and Emily Albu, Bill Ainsworth and Kathy Olmsted, Andrew Anker and Nancy Leroy, and Ted and Jo Burr Margadant provided conceptual advice, criticism of drafts, and much emotional support—and many dinners. Also, I have been enlightened by many conversations with Thomas Andrews, Bob Bonner, David Biale, William Cronon, William Hagen, Jack Hicks, Drew Isenberg, Susan Johnson, Cathy Kudlick, Norma Landau, Howard Lamar, David Rich Lewis, Ming-Cheng Lo, Sally McKee, Barbara Metcalf, Tom Metcalf, Clyde Milner, George Moses, Louis Owens, Andres Resendez, Kevin Rozario, Marni Sandweiss, Suzana Sawyer, John Smolenski, Krystyna Von Henneberg, Clarence Walker, and Li Zhang. In addition to my faculty colleagues in the UC Davis Department of History, I would like to thank my research assistants for their cheerful, relentless pursuit of sources: Robert Chester, Phil Garone, Emily Hanawalt, David Hickman, Ben Perez, and Josh Reid.
Louis S. Warren Page 95