biography
| name: |
Cody, William F(rederick)
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known as Buffalo Bill
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pronunciation:
[kohdee]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1846–1917)
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| biography:
| Frontiersman and showman, born in Scott Co, Iowa, USA. After his father died when he was 12, and with little formal education, he worked as a wagoner, trapper, and prospector before joining the Pony Express at age 14. During the Civil War, he served as a scout for the Union army's Ninth Kansas Cavalry (1863) and then with the Union forces in Tennessee and Missouri (1864–5). After the war he tried various ventures, such as running a hotel and freighting business, and working on railroad construction, then became a buffalo hunter (1867–8), supplying meat to the Kansas Pacific Railroad and gaining his nickname (killing 4280 buffalo by his own count). Working as a civilian scout for the Fifth Cavalry (1868–72), he fought the Sioux and Cheyenne and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, later revoked (1917) because he had not been in the military. In 1872 he appeared in a stage play by E Z C Judson who, under the pen name ‘Ned Buntline’, also began to feature Buffalo Bill in a series of low-price novels. Cody went back to the plains to raise cattle and scout again for the military (he was said to have killed and scalped the Cheyenne chief, Yellow Hand), but decided to capitalize on his fame by organizing ‘Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show’ (1983). With himself as the star and with other talented marksmen and riders, such as Annie Oakley, and featuring a mock battle with Indians, the show toured before appreciative audiences throughout America and Europe for 30 years. Financial troubles then closed the show (1913), but he continued performing for others almost to his death. In the 1890s he had settled on a large tract given to him by the state of Wyoming in the Bighorn Basin (later the site of Cody). He died unexpectedly in Denver and is buried on nearby Lookout Mountain, and remains one of the archetypal American legends. |
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