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supplier. In

0:48

Eighteen Eighty Six, but twenty six year

0:50

old Oglala Lakota man named Black Elk,

0:52

a cousin of Crazy Horse, learned that

0:54

some of his tribesmen were joining the

0:56

Wild West. I thought I ought to

0:58

go. Black Elk said because I might

1:00

learn some of the secret of the

1:02

was see chew their would help my

1:05

people somehow. I even thought that if

1:07

the Y C choose had a better

1:09

way than maybe my people should live

1:11

that way. In. The

1:13

Lakota dialect the word was see

1:15

chew translates literally to takes the

1:18

fat but it means greedy and

1:20

it was the Lakota term for

1:22

white man. Blackout joined Buffalo Bill

1:25

when the Wild West played Madison

1:27

Square Garden for four months. Blackout

1:30

then said. After. I had

1:32

been there for a while. I was

1:34

like a man who had never had

1:36

a vision. I felt dead and my

1:38

people seemed lost. I did not see

1:40

anything to help my people. Three

1:43

months later, Black Elk and the cast

1:45

of The Wild West were in London,

1:47

where they were invited to perform for

1:50

Queen Victoria. Black Elk said Grandmother England

1:52

was little but fat and we liked

1:54

her because she was good to us.

1:57

She said if you belong to me I.

2:00

Would not let them take you around in a show

2:02

like this. When. The

2:04

Wild West left London and performed in

2:06

Manchester. Black Elk and three other Lakota

2:08

performers got lost in the city and

2:10

missed the boat when it lost. They

2:13

bought train tickets back to London, where

2:16

they joined the show of one of

2:18

Buffalo Bill's competitors, a man called Mexican.

2:21

Black Elk traveled with Mexican Joe to

2:23

Paris and Germany and to see Mount

2:26

Vesuvius in Italy. For Blackout

2:28

was too sick to perform with the show.

2:33

He had a vision that the

2:35

ceiling above him became a cloud

2:37

and he flew on the cloud

2:39

back over the Atlantic, across America

2:41

of the Missouri River toward the

2:43

Black Hills and into the Pine

2:45

Ridge Reservation. He looked down

2:48

and saw his parents in their Tp. With.

2:50

His mother looking up at him. But. Then

2:52

he was drawn back across the ocean and

2:54

into his body. The. People

2:56

around him said he had been gone for

2:58

three days and that they were in the process

3:00

of building a coffin to bury him. When.

3:03

Buffalo Bill in the Wild West Return

3:05

to Paris. Cody. Bought Black Elk

3:07

a ticket home to the United States

3:10

and paid for train passage back to

3:12

Pine Ridge. Blood. Returned

3:14

home three years after he lost.

3:17

Only. To discover that the Us government

3:19

had taken more is people's land. Worse,

3:22

Blackout had been free to perform his

3:24

religious dances in front of Grandmother England

3:27

and on the show grounds of Buffalo

3:29

Bills Wild West. But. Now

3:31

was seats You agents told he and his

3:33

people not to dance. He

3:35

had fought with Crazy Horse at the Little

3:37

Bighorn. He had seen the York and London

3:40

and had met the Queen of England. He

3:42

had seen Paris and Rome and he had

3:44

seen visions about his people and their place

3:46

in the world. He had travelled

3:48

east to see of the White man's way of

3:50

life would be better for his people. And.

3:52

Returns convinced that it was not. black

3:55

elks time with buffalo bills wild

3:58

west spectacle had been a period

4:00

of purse personal dislocation, and cultural

4:02

confusion. But it

4:04

provided him with valuable experiences that shaped

4:06

and informed his role as a holy

4:08

man. It reinforced his

4:11

mission to heal, educate, and guide

4:13

his people through tumultuous times, drawing

4:16

strength from both Lakota traditions

4:18

and his expanded worldview. That

4:21

strength would be tested in the extreme

4:23

as the American nations steamed toward the

4:25

20th century, and at the same time

4:28

proved it was not done with the old,

4:30

bloody conflicts of the 19th century. From

4:41

Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old

4:43

West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer,

4:45

and this season we're telling the story of

4:47

William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, the

4:50

man who turned the American frontier into

4:52

the wild west. This is

4:54

episode 5, The Wild West

4:57

Abroad. From

5:07

November 11, 1886 through February 22, 1887, Buffalo Bill Cody and

5:09

his Wild West spectacle

5:16

occupied New York's Madison Square

5:18

Garden. The inside of

5:20

the arena was decorated with giant

5:22

curved paintings, each 40 feet high and

5:26

150 feet long, depicting what

5:28

Bill and his business partner

5:30

Nate Salisbury called the drama

5:32

of civilization. In

5:34

January, the show added a thrilling

5:37

conclusion, a reenactment of the

5:39

Battle of the Little Bighorn. It

5:41

was marketed as Custer's Last Rally,

5:44

and attended and endorsed by Custer's

5:46

widow Libby. She sat

5:48

in a private box to watch while

5:50

Buffalo Bill, wearing a blonde wig and

5:52

holding aloft a saber, portrayed

5:55

her fallen husband's final battle.

5:58

When Cody was asked how he could employ some

6:00

of the same Sioux warriors who had actually fought

6:02

in the battle, he replied. Their

6:05

lands were invaded by gold seekers, and

6:08

when the US government failed to protect them, they

6:11

thought it was time to do it themselves. The

6:13

government did all they thought they could do, but

6:16

the white men wouldn't be held back. No

6:19

one can blame the Indians for defending their

6:21

homes. But all that is past.

6:28

With the combination of the giant

6:30

paintings, the endorsement of Libby Custer,

6:33

the real Sioux warriors, and attractions

6:35

like Annie Oakley, the Wild

6:37

West at Madison Square Garden rose to

6:39

new heights. Its roots

6:42

went back to a 4th of July

6:44

celebration, called the Old Glory Blowout, that

6:46

Bill had organized for North Platte, Nebraska.

6:49

And now, it was firmly

6:51

entrenched as an acceptable middle-class attraction.

6:55

Both in the show's programs

6:57

and in newspaper coverage, Buffalo

6:59

Bill's Wild West was called

7:01

America's National Entertainment. And

7:04

it was America's National Entertainment which firmly

7:06

established the story of the American West

7:09

as the story of American history. When

7:12

the Wild West left New York at the end of

7:14

February, 1887, newspaper

7:17

reporters noted that children in town were

7:19

playing a new game that was called

7:21

Cowboys and Indians. Nearly

7:23

140 years later, American kids

7:26

are still playing it, and maybe kids

7:28

around the world. That's

7:30

how deep the cultural impact runs of

7:32

Buffalo Bill and his Wild West. And

7:36

in the early spring of 1887, when

7:39

all of the enormous paintings were packed,

7:41

the tents were folded, and the Cowboys

7:43

and Indians were finished with Madison Square

7:45

Garden, Buffalo Bill and Nate

7:48

Salisbury made an announcement. Buffalo

7:50

Bill's Wild West was sailing for

7:52

Great Britain. It seems

7:54

fitting that the ship that carried Buffalo Bill's

7:57

Wild West to Europe was the SS

7:59

State of Nebraska. Go. The

8:01

ship pulled out of New York Harbor on

8:03

March thirty first, eighteen eighty Seven, and it

8:06

was stuffed with more than two hundred horses.

8:08

Eighteen. Buffalo and assorted Longhorn

8:11

steers, donkeys and mules, elk

8:13

and deer. Two.

8:15

Hundred Nine show performers, including

8:17

nearly a hundred Lakota men,

8:19

women, and children occupied the

8:21

ships quarters. The. Passage was

8:23

long and rough and not all

8:25

of the animals survived. And

8:28

the contingent arrived in time to

8:30

perform at the American Exhibition. A

8:33

World's Fair held it Earls Court

8:35

in London to coincide with Queen

8:37

Victoria's Golden Jubilee. A. Celebration

8:39

of her fiftieth anniversary as

8:41

Queen. Bill

8:44

in the cast began rehearsals soon

8:46

after their arrival. And because

8:48

of the efforts of publicist John Bird.

8:50

Spectators. Crowded the area to

8:52

get a glimpse of the cowboys, Indians,

8:55

and perhaps even the great Buffalo Bill

8:57

himself. William. Gladstone,

8:59

who had been elected prime minister

9:01

three times. Came. To see the show

9:03

as it was in It's Rehearsal. The.

9:05

Prince of Wales, who would succeed his

9:08

mother as King Edward the Seventh, also

9:10

came to an advance performance. And

9:13

a few days later in a

9:15

private showing Buffalo Bills Wild West

9:17

was attended by Queen Victoria herself.

9:20

At the start of the show, as

9:22

a standard bearer presented the American flag,

9:25

the Queen stood and made a gesture

9:27

of respect. John Bourke

9:29

wrote. As he waved the

9:31

proud emblem above his head. For. Majesty

9:33

rose from her seat and bowed

9:36

deeply and impressively toward the banner.

9:39

There arose such a genuine arts

9:41

during Americans yell from our company

9:43

as seem to shake the sky.

9:46

For. The first time since the Declaration

9:48

of Independence, a sovereign of Great Britain

9:50

had saluted the Star Spangled Banner and

9:52

that banner was carried by member of

9:55

Buffalo Bills Wild West. The

10:01

implied endorsement by Queen Victoria of

10:04

Buffalo Bill's Wild West as the

10:06

quintessential representation of America was better

10:08

than all the advertising money could

10:11

buy. European

10:13

royalty was already in London to celebrate

10:15

the Queen's Jubilee. Now they

10:18

flock to the Wild West. According

10:20

to one story, at one evening's

10:23

performance, the Deadwood Stagecoach, which was

10:25

the centerpiece of the stagecoach robbery

10:27

sequence, was loaded with the

10:29

Prince of Wales, the King of Denmark,

10:31

the King of Saxony, the King of

10:33

Greece, and the King and Queen of

10:35

Belgium. When the show

10:37

was over, the Prince of Wales

10:40

commented that Buffalo Bill had never held

10:42

four kings like these before. Bill

10:45

replied, I've held four kings, but

10:47

four kings and the Prince of Wales makes

10:50

a royal flush such as no man has

10:52

ever held before. The

10:54

Prince liked the joke so much, he repeated it for

10:56

the rest of his life. The

10:59

spectacle and success of Buffalo Bill's Wild

11:01

West in London set the stage for

11:03

the rest of Buffalo Bill's career. It

11:06

once been a soldier, a hunter, a scout,

11:08

and an actor. With the

11:10

Wild West spectacle, he became a showman.

11:14

Now he was the most famous man in

11:16

the world. Soldiers

11:21

sprang to life almost immediately. Doc

11:24

Carver, Bill's partner in the first

11:26

version of the Wild West, toured

11:28

Europe with a new partner. Men

11:31

called Mexican Joe and Texas

11:33

Jack Jr. visited the United

11:35

Kingdom. P.T.

11:37

Barnum brought the greatest show on

11:39

earth to London, but

11:41

none could compete with Buffalo Bill's

11:43

Wild West for longevity or influence.

11:46

When the Wild West left London,

11:49

it headed for Birmingham, Manchester, and

11:51

Hull before returning to America for

11:53

a two-month run of performances on

11:55

Staten Island. Those

11:58

were followed by appearances in Baltimore. Philadelphia,

12:01

Washington, DC, and Richmond,

12:03

Virginia. And Bill and

12:05

Nate Salisbury had already booked a return

12:07

trip across the Atlantic, where the Wild

12:09

West opened at the World's Fair in

12:11

Paris, France in May of 1889. After

12:15

six months in Paris, during which time

12:17

the company performed for the King of

12:19

France and the Shaw of Persia, the

12:22

show moved on to Lyon, Marseille,

12:24

and Barcelona, Spain, before heading to

12:27

Rome. In

12:29

the history of public entertainment, there was

12:31

probably never a tour before the Wild

12:33

West or since that played to so

12:35

many world leaders. The idea

12:38

that four kings, a queen and

12:40

a prince, would actively participate in

12:42

such a show would be unfathomable

12:44

today. And when the tour

12:46

moved to Rome, Romans poured

12:48

out to experience America's national

12:50

entertainment, just like audiences everywhere

12:53

else. From Rome,

12:55

promotional mastermind John Burke sent reports

12:57

to newspapers in America about a

13:00

meeting between the Wild West Company

13:02

and Pope Leo XIII. The

13:06

New York Herald reported, The

13:08

Cowboys bowed and so did the Indians.

13:11

Rocky Bear, a Lakota man, knelt and made

13:13

the sign of the cross. The

13:15

pontiff leaned affectionately toward the group

13:17

and blessed them. In

13:20

reality, Cody and crew simply

13:22

attended an anniversary celebration of the

13:25

Pope's coronation and were afforded

13:27

the same mass blessing as all the

13:29

other attendees. But between

13:31

the real reception by European spectators

13:34

and the magnifying prominence afforded by

13:36

reporters, Buffalo Bill's

13:38

Wild West surpassed the bounds

13:40

of simple entertainment and became

13:42

something more. Other

13:45

circuses, entertainments and even western

13:48

shows played to large audiences

13:50

and welcomed famous guests. But

13:52

none had the impact of the Wild West. Part

13:55

of it was because Cody's success came

13:57

as an answer to America's worries that

13:59

it's not. culture and art weren't distinctive

14:01

enough and weren't up to the standards

14:04

of the old world. In

14:06

the hands of Buffalo Bill, an

14:08

exhibition of American frontier history

14:10

was experiencing unprecedented success with

14:12

the cultured elites of Europe.

14:15

It validated Cody, American history, and

14:17

American entertainment all in the same

14:19

show. In

14:26

Buffalo Bill's first stage shows, with

14:28

his friend Texas Jack and dime

14:30

novelist Ned Buntline, the famous

14:33

Italian ballerina, Giessipino Morlaki, had been

14:35

on hand to convince audiences that

14:37

the show had some artistic merit.

14:40

Now, Buffalo Bill was bringing

14:43

distinctly American art to Italy, the

14:45

heart of European culture. The

14:48

show visited Florence, Bologna, Milan,

14:50

and Venice before performing at

14:52

all the major cities in

14:54

modern-day Germany and Austria. The

14:57

European tour finally ended in October of

14:59

1890, and the

15:02

company returned to the U.S. nearly 18 months

15:04

after it had left. Buffalo

15:07

Bill's Wild West presented itself, both

15:09

in Europe and in America, as

15:11

an authentic historical exhibition, showing

15:14

the, quote, drama of civilization as

15:16

it unfolded in the frontier. Central

15:19

to the story and to the Wild

15:22

West spectacle were the show's Lakota performers.

15:25

It was Bill Cody's show and he was

15:27

the star, but the Native Americans were its

15:29

most crucial element. Spectators

15:31

watched the Lakota in mock combat

15:34

with cowboys during the show, but

15:36

they also visited Lakota lodges on the

15:38

show grounds to see how the men,

15:40

women, and children lived as families. In

15:43

many ways, the spectacle of the Wild

15:46

West was matched in the estimation of

15:48

visitors only by the experience

15:50

of seeing and meeting Lakota people in

15:52

person. The

15:57

Lakota Performers were treated well. Eighteen

16:00

Eighty Nine, The Wild West paid

16:02

twenty eight thousand, eight hundred dollars

16:04

to it's Lakota performers. That.

16:06

Would be close to or more than a

16:09

million dollars today. The. Lakota

16:11

men were paid ten dollars per month. A.

16:13

Cody hired their wives at the same

16:16

weight with small cash allowances for the

16:18

children. At a time

16:20

when native people had very few economic

16:22

opportunities, The. Show provided both a

16:25

chance at relative wealth and an

16:27

opportunity to practice and protect their

16:29

religious ceremonies, songs and dances. In

16:32

a way that was increasingly prohibited at home.

16:35

In Eighteen Eighty Seven. The

16:37

United States government passed the Dogs

16:39

Act which took communal he held

16:42

tribal lands and assign them to

16:44

individual families in plots of three

16:46

hundred twenty acres. In.

16:48

March Of. Eighteen Eighty Nine. The. Government

16:50

continued to break the Fort Laramie

16:53

Treaty of eighteen Sixty Eight, which

16:55

was the result of Red Clouds

16:57

war by dividing the Great Sioux

16:59

Reservation in defied smaller reservations. And.

17:02

In February of Eighteen Ninety, while

17:05

the Lakota performers with the Wild

17:07

West for entertaining crowds and the

17:09

Pope in Rome, the government opened

17:11

nine million acres or half of

17:13

the former Great Sioux Reservation for

17:16

public purchase. After that,

17:18

Congress cut funding for the Psu

17:20

by ten percent. One

17:22

million fewer pounds of beef been

17:24

promised were sent to the Pine

17:26

Ridge Reservation. Influenza

17:29

raids to the reservation, as

17:31

did whooping cough and measles

17:33

which decimated the Lakota population.

17:36

There were five thousand, five hundred people

17:38

on the Pine Ridge Reservation. and eighteen

17:40

ninety. And Five hundred, forty

17:43

deaths. The situation was about

17:45

as bleak as it had ever been. And

17:48

then came the ghosts dance. rooted

17:50

in a vision by a pi

17:53

you profit to go stance prophesies

17:55

the return of the ancestors and

17:57

retreat of the white colonizers restoring

18:00

land to indigenous people. Participants

18:02

in the ghost dance believed that through

18:05

the dance, they could bring about this

18:07

vision of renewal and regain their lost

18:09

traditions and way of loss. The

18:12

movement's rituals, which included singing and

18:14

dancing in a circular pattern, were

18:17

seen as a way to purify oneself and

18:19

unite with the spirit world. To

18:22

U.S. government officials and the settlers who

18:24

flocked to take over Lakota land, the

18:27

ghost dance seemed like a call to rebellion

18:29

and was perceived as a threat. As

18:32

the ghost dance spread, tensions between

18:34

the U.S. government and the Lakota

18:36

escalated. General Nelson Miles

18:39

believed that bloodshed could be avoided if

18:41

Sitting Bull could be arrested. At

18:44

a banquet in Chicago in late 1890,

18:47

Miles asked Buffalo Bill if he would help

18:49

to, secure the person

18:51

of Sitting Bull and deliver him to

18:53

the nearest officer of U.S. troops. Bill

18:56

obliged and headed for South Dakota with

18:59

two wagons of gifts meant to ease

19:01

Sitting Bull's worries and convince him to

19:03

come with his old show partner. James

19:12

McLaughlin, the Indian agent assigned to

19:14

the Lakota by the Department of

19:16

the Interior, was furious that

19:18

the Department of War was sending someone

19:20

to arrest Sitting Bull. McLaughlin

19:23

determined that the quote, honor of

19:25

arresting the legendary Lakota leader should

19:28

be his. McLaughlin

19:30

sent a telegram to Washington asking

19:32

to rescind General Miles' orders for

19:35

Buffalo Bill to arrest Sitting Bull.

19:38

Meanwhile, McLaughlin convinced an officer at Fort

19:40

Yates to get Buffalo Bill drunk in

19:43

an effort to convince Bill to agree

19:45

to the change of plan. When

19:48

Cody's capacity for whiskey failed to sway

19:50

him from his assignment, McLaughlin

19:52

instructed two of his scouts to lie

19:54

to Bill, telling him that

19:56

Sitting Bull had already left camp and headed

19:59

to the agency. By

20:01

then, McLaughlin's telegram had reached the

20:03

desk of President Benjamin Harrison, who

20:05

wired to rescind the arrest order.

20:09

Buffalo Bill left the reservation without

20:11

seeing Sitting Bull. Two

20:17

weeks later, on December 15, 1890,

20:20

McLaughlin ordered 39 Indian agency

20:23

policemen to surround the House of Sitting

20:25

Bull, who had allowed ghost dancers to

20:27

gather at his camp. When

20:30

Sitting Bull refused to comply with their demands

20:32

that he come with him, he was shot

20:34

twice in the chest and once in the

20:36

head. In the fighting

20:38

that followed, eight policemen were killed, as

20:40

were Sitting Bull and seven of his followers.

20:44

Two weeks later, on December 29, a

20:47

band of Minikonju Lakota, led by

20:49

Chief Bigfoot, was intercepted by U.S.

20:51

troops near Wounded Knee Creek in

20:54

South Dakota. That

20:56

exactly transpired remains a topic of

20:58

debate, but a shot was fired,

21:01

which quickly led to chaos. The

21:04

U.S. Army's 7th calorie, the unit that

21:06

had suffered devastating losses at the Battle

21:08

of the Little Bighorn 18 years

21:10

earlier, opened fire on the

21:12

Lakota, including women and children. When

21:15

the shooting stopped, more than 150 Lakota

21:18

were dead, with some estimates placing

21:20

the number closer to 300. The

21:23

Sioux leaders of the Ghost Dance Movement

21:26

were imprisoned at Fort Sheridan, and

21:28

the Commissioner of Indian Affairs announced that

21:30

no more Native Americans would be allowed

21:32

to participate in show business. But

21:35

General Miles, remembering Buffalo Bill's willingness

21:37

to talk to Sitting Bull, offered

21:40

another solution. With

21:42

the support of Nebraska's congressional delegation,

21:45

Buffalo Bill was given permission to take

21:47

the Lakota prisoners with him to Europe.

21:50

When Kicking Bear, a Lakota chief and

21:52

first cousin to Crazy Horse, was released

21:55

from prison, he told Buffalo Bill, "...for

21:57

six weeks I have been a dead man." Now

22:00

that I see you, I'm alive again. 23

22:04

imprisoned Lakota joined 75 more

22:07

Lakota when the Wild West sailed for

22:09

Antwerp in April of 1891. The

22:15

show toured Europe for a full year

22:18

before wrapping up with another command performance

22:20

for Queen Victoria on the grounds of

22:22

Windsor Castle. While

22:24

Buffalo Bill and Nate Salisbury had waited to

22:26

learn if they would be allowed to hire

22:28

Lakota performers for the tour, they

22:31

really diversified the show's current. As

22:34

the show had trekked across Europe,

22:36

it added groups of Russian Cossacks,

22:39

Argentine Gauchos, and Mexican Vaqueros to

22:41

its contingent of Cowboys, Cowgirls, and

22:44

the members of Buffalo Bill's Cowboy

22:46

Band. It had

22:48

been five years since the Wild West had

22:50

conquered London, and four since it

22:52

had performed in the United States. When

22:55

they made their triumphant return to

22:57

American soil, they were renamed Buffalo

22:59

Bill's Wild West and Congress of

23:01

Rough Riders of the World. News

23:05

of Buffalo Bill's artistic triumph over

23:07

the people, aristocracy, and culture of

23:10

Europe elevated him to almost mythic

23:12

status. Widespread

23:14

news of the ghost dance, the

23:16

killing of Sitting Bull, and the

23:19

massacre at Wounded Knee made the

23:21

American public intensely anxious to see

23:23

the Lakota performers in the Wild

23:25

West and their simulated battles with

23:27

Buffalo Bill's Cowboys. And

23:29

there was no better venue for

23:31

the Wild West to stage its triumphant

23:34

return to America than the World's Columbian

23:36

Exposition, more commonly known as

23:38

the Chicago World's Fair. The

23:46

World's Columbian Exposition was held in 1893 to commemorate

23:48

the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the

23:50

New World. The

23:52

Exposition showcased technological advancements, architectural

23:55

and cultural development, and

23:58

the development of the world's most advanced architecture. allowed

26:00

for nighttime shows and the

26:02

Wild West doubled ticket sales

26:05

without increasing salaries. The

26:07

new format was an amazing success

26:09

and set the stage for seven

26:11

years of continual touring across the

26:13

United States with thousands of performances

26:15

in hundreds of cities between 1895 and 1902.

26:18

And for those who have

26:22

already recognized a fairly famous American nickname

26:24

in this evolution of the show, the

26:27

impact of the Wild West rippled

26:29

into everyday life. In

26:31

1898, Theodore Roosevelt

26:34

took charge of the first United

26:36

States volunteer cavalry to fight in

26:38

the Spanish-American War. The

26:41

public took one look at

26:43

Teddy's collection of Texas Rangers,

26:45

Native Americans, Ivy League athletes,

26:47

and Western frontiersmen and

26:49

decided that if the Cowboys, Cossacks,

26:51

Gauchos, and Vacheros of the Wild

26:53

West show were called Buffalo Bill's

26:56

Rough Riders, then these

26:58

volunteer soldiers were Teddy Roosevelt's

27:00

Rough Riders. The

27:02

name stuck and the group rose to fame

27:04

for its role in the Battle of San

27:06

Juan Hill. And then

27:08

in performances the following year, art

27:11

imitated life, imitating art when

27:13

Buffalo Bill's Rough Riders reenacted

27:15

the charge of Teddy Roosevelt's

27:17

Rough Riders up San Juan

27:19

Hill. As expected,

27:21

the performance was a smashing success.

27:24

Bill was earning unprecedented profits

27:27

as an entertainment impresario, and

27:30

he started pouring lots of that

27:32

money into a new venture with

27:34

his partner Nate Salisbury and entrepreneur

27:36

George T. Beck in Wyoming's Bighorn

27:38

Basin. Beck

27:43

and his partners were planning to create

27:45

a town on the banks of the

27:47

stinking water river, as it was called,

27:49

in northwest Wyoming. Obviously

27:51

that name was gonna have to change. No

27:54

one was gonna want to live on the banks of

27:56

the stinking water river. George

27:58

Beck petitioned the to change the name

28:01

of the river to the Shoshone. Then

28:04

Beck submitted the name of the proposed town

28:06

and it was also Shoshone. The

28:08

state said they couldn't use the name Shoshone

28:11

for the town because the town was too

28:13

close to the nearby Shoshone reservation. The

28:16

new name he sent to the state was the

28:18

name of his partner, the most famous man in

28:20

the world, Cody. The

28:24

partners founded the Shoshone Irrigation

28:26

Company and set about building

28:28

dams, canals, office buildings, stores,

28:31

stables, and roads, all

28:33

funded by Buffalo Bill and his profits from

28:35

the Wild West. By

28:37

1896, full page spreads in

28:41

the Wild West show programs advertised,

28:44

irrigated homes in the Bighorn Basin,

28:46

the greatest agricultural valley in the

28:48

West, now open to settlers and

28:51

home seekers. Buffalo

28:53

Bill founded the town's first newspaper,

28:56

opened a gold mine, found a delivery,

28:59

and opened a hotel that he named after his

29:01

youngest daughter, Irma. The

29:04

town of Cody, Wyoming was officially on the map

29:06

and it was a place Bill planned

29:08

on building up, bringing his family to

29:10

and retiring in. But before

29:12

he could retire, Buffalo Bill's life

29:15

would continue to follow a familiar pattern.

29:18

Every time things were going well, tragedy

29:20

and turmoil rose up like an

29:22

angry snake ready to strike. Next

29:24

time on Legends of

29:27

the Old West, old age catches up with Bill and his

29:29

partners. Bill's long and

29:31

tumultuous marriage to Louisa finally

29:34

hits obstacles it can't overcome. And

29:37

the revelations that become public will shock newspaper

29:40

readers. More personal tragedy

29:42

follows and financial

29:44

problems as well as financial successes, all of

29:46

which helps cement the legacy of

29:49

the greatest showmen on earth. That's

29:51

next week's edition of the Old West. That's

29:54

next week on the finale of the Buffalo

29:56

Bill Cody story here on Legends of the

29:58

Old West. Members

30:01

of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have

30:03

to wait week to week to receive new

30:05

episodes. They receive the entire series

30:07

to binge all at once with no commercials.

30:10

And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes.

30:13

Sign up now through the link

30:15

in the show notes or on

30:17

our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are

30:20

just $5 per month. This

30:22

series was researched and written by Matthew

30:25

Kearns. Original music by Rob

30:27

Vallier. I'm your host and producer,

30:29

Chris Wimmer. If you enjoyed the

30:31

show, please leave us a rating and a

30:33

review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening.

30:36

Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, for

30:38

more details and join us on

30:40

social media. We're at

30:43

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30:45

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30:47

all of our episodes are available on YouTube. Just

30:49

search for Legends of the Old West Podcast.

30:52

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