WILLIAM F. CODY – BUFFALO BILL

Alexander Majors usually rode alongside the train communicating his instruction with pony-mounted messengers. One such runner got his start when his mother asked Majors to give her 12 year-old son a job. Majors hired him and later taught him to read and sign his name. He became part of American Folklore as “Buffalo Bill,” but this was little Will Cody’s first job. When Cody was but 14, Majors gave him his next job as a pony express rider. The Pony Express Venture was a financial failure, and the start of the Majors empire’s downward spiral. But it was just the beginning in the long and successful career of Buffalo Bill Cody.

The late 19th century was the age of great showmen and traveling entertainers, like the Barnum and Bailey Circus, the Vaudeville circuits, and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. In 1883, Cody founded his production in Omaha, Nebraska, a show that would run, in one form or another, for the next three decades, charming crowds throughout the United States and Europe.

Over the years, the troupe, which included as many as 1,200 performers, included many authentic personalities such as James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, Texas Jack Omohundro, Annie Oakley, prominent Native Americans, including Sitting Bull and Geronimo, as well as “real” cowboys recruited from the West.

The show itself consisted of a series of historical scenes interspersed with feats of showmanship, sharp shooting, staged races, rodeo style events, and sideshows.

Native Americans figured prominently in many of the scenes, often shown attacking wagon trains with Buffalo Bill or one of his colleagues riding in and saving the day. The show also re-enacted the riding of the Pony Express, stagecoach robberies, and buffalo-hunting, with the production ending with a melodramatic re-enactment of Custer’s Last Stand in which Cody himself portrayed General Custer.

By the turn of the 20th century, William F. Cody was probably the most famous American in the world. No one symbolized the West for Americans and Europeans better than Buffalo Bill. His shows were billed as one of the entertainment triumphs of the ages.

As Cody’s career skyrocketed, Majors career faltered. The failed pony express venture, along with the advent of the telegraph and railroads, bankrupted Majors enterprises. By 1865 Majors sold out what little remained and moved to Colorado, and Cody lost track of his old friend. When, some 30 years later, his former young wagonmaster and Pony Express rider, found him, he was old, ill and penniless. Cody helped him, taking Majors on as part of the Cody Wild West show. Majors even lived at Cody’s Scouts’ Rest Ranch in North Platte, Nebraska for a time. It was Buffalo Bill who took Majors to Promontory Utah for the driving of the golden spike which united two railroads for the first U.S. transcontinental rail system. And it was Buffalo Bill who urged Majors to write an account of his life, called “Seventy Years On The Frontier.” Majors dedicated the book to Buffalo Bill, and Buffalo Bill wrote the preface, crediting his old friend with giving him his start in life