Buffalo Bills Wild West Show

[Texas Jay]

This is an old colorized photograph postcard showing Buffalo Bill's Wild Show. If you can find the locations where this show set up, on the attached schedule which gives the exact locations in each town, these would be great places to metal detect.

William F. Cody Archive: Documenting the life and times of Buffalo Bill

~Texas Jay
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/treasurehuntingtexas

[Jason in Enid]

Wow, he certainly employed a lot of people! Too bad none of those show sites are anywhere near me.

[Slingshot]

I detected the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show site in Atlanta's Piedmont Park about 25 years ago when they were in that area bulldozing for park renovations. There were literally thousands of old .50-70 cartridges scattered around where the show was held, along with a substantial amount of old coins, though I was disappointed that over the several weekends that myself and several other detectorists worked the site no gold coins surfaced. I kept a bag full of those monstrously large cartridges for years before a collector made me a deal I couldn't refuse. Most of the coins would have been about a foot down before the dozers made a leveling swipe through that area though, and I would have hated to try and detect them through all those brass cartridges. As it was, after a rain, the cartridges looked like thousands of green fingers sticking up out of the bare red clay.

[Texas Jay]

Wow, he certainly employed a lot of people! Too bad none of those show sites are anywhere near me.

He did employ a lot of people and his show operated for many years, Jason. I haven't found any of his shows in my area either but I know from old historical records that he was in my town, Brownwood, on at least one occasion. The story is about him waiting on our Courthouse Square for a stage and joking about the long wait. The list I provided, however, only gives his appearances for a couple of years. Most of those were in the northeast and northern states. Here's a picture of one of his show posters.

~Texas Jay

[Texas Jay]

Thanks, Slingshot, for telling us about your search of the old Buffalo Bill Wild West site. That sounds like it was great fun. Here's an 1890 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody standing beside one of his show's wagons.
~Texas Jay

[devldog]

Interesting post and pic's. Don't you know that Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show would have really been entertaining.........so much more than the so called reality shows of today.

[Jason in Enid]

When I first read this and read the link to the show info and tour locations, I was disappointed they didnt have shows around my around. Then I realized, this was a WILD WEST show, put on for eastern yankees who had never seen anything like this. in the 1890s, all those exact things from the show were daily life in my area.

[Texas Jay]

Buffalo Bill Cody wasn't the only one to tour the country with a Wild West Show. There were many others, like the Cole Younger and Frank James Show and Pawnee Bill. Here's another photo of what I assume was one of Buffalo Bill's pre-show posters.
~Texas Jay

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/treasurehuntingtexas

[Texas Jay]

Here's another old photo of Buffalo Bill beside one of his show posters. Home - William C. "Bloody Bill" Anderson
~Texas Jay

[A2coins]

nice colorized crazy