Thanks to my parents, Claude and Elizabeth Warren, who have long encouraged me to follow the paths I most enjoy and stay on them to the end. My in-laws, Robert and Mary Streeter, have provided encouragement and a lovely retreat in the high country of Wyoming for many years now.
I reserve my greatest debt for last. During the research and writing of this book, my family has exhibited both stalwart patience with being ignored for long stretches of time, and enthusiasm for the sometimes weird travel itinerary. Much as my boys enjoyed the trip to Disneyland Paris—where they watched the live reenactment of the Wild West show, “La Legende de Buffalo Bill”—they have not been wild about Buffalo Bill. Not long ago, my son Sam spoke for himself and his big brother, Jesse, when he informed me that this must be my last book, “because writing keeps us from having fun with you.” To both my boys, I can only say that I am even happier than you are that this book is finished.
For eight years, through all the ups and downs of this project, and the many thousands of miles we’ve logged in completing it, my wife, Spring, has believed in it and seen me through all my doubts, disruptions, and setbacks. She edited every chapter (more than once) and provided me the best and most consistent advice on history, narrative, and literary style. I could not have done it without her. Her good-natured observation about how enthusiastically I turn almost any conversation back toward the subject of this book—“All roads lead to Buffalo Bill”—has long become a standing joke among friends and family. Now that we’ve reached our destination, there are a thousand new roads waiting. Which one we choose does not concern me, so long as I share it with you.
LOUIS S. WARREN
BUFFALO BILL’S AMERICA
Louis S. Warren is W. Turrentine Jackson Professor of Western U.S. History at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of The Hunter’s Game: Poachers and Conservationists in Twentieth-Century America, which won the Western Heritage Award for Outstanding Nonfiction Book, 1998, awarded by the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center.
ALSO BY LOUIS S. WARREN
The Hunter’s Game
American Environmental History (ed.)
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 2006
Copyright © 2005 by Louis S. Warren
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of
Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, a division
of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2005.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Liveright Publishing Corporation for permission
to reprint the lines from “Buffalo Bill’s” copyright 1923, 1951, © 1991 by the Trustees
for the E. E. Cummings Trust. From Complete Poems: 1904–1962 by E. E. Cummings,
edited by George J. Firmage. Copyright © 1976 by George James Firmage.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West show / Louis S. Warren.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Buffalo Bill, 1846–1917. 2. Pioneers—West (U.S.)—Biography.
3. Frontier and pioneer life—West (U.S.) 4. Entertainers—United States—Biography.
5. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. 6. West (U.S.)—Biography. I. Title.
F594.B94W37 2005
978’02’092—dc22
[b]
2004063280
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-42510-2
v3.0
Louis S. Warren Page 96