DID YOU KNOW?
and flavor of the American West through fiction and melodrama. His colorful Wild West show, which came to be known as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World, evolved into an international institution and made him one of the world’s first global celebrities.
Early Years
Now, Bill Cody’s father, Isaac, moved his family from their farm near LeClaire, Iowa, on the Mississippi River to Kansas, where he operated a trading post near the Kickapoo Indian Agency. At the time, Kansas was engulfed in a violent struggle between those who opposed slavery, and those who supported it. While delivering an antislavery speech, his father Isaac was stabbed, and he ultimately succumbed to his wounds three years later in 1857. To support his family, Bill Cody already had begun working at age nine for the Russell, Majors, and Waddell freight company, where he made use of his skills as a horseman. In 1857 Cody came to be celebrated as the youngest Indian fighter on the Great Plains after he killed
Anyway, of particular-note was a dramatic round-trip ride of some 300 miles in Wyoming between Red Butte Station and Pacific Springs Station on which Cody completed not only his own leg, but those of missing relief riders, a sleepless odyssey of nearly 22 continuous hours of riding.
Now, on another legendary ride, Bill Cody outran Oceti Sakowin warriors to
a Native American who helped attack the cattle drive on which Cody was working. On the same cattle drive, Cody met the young Wild Bill Hickok, who intervened on his side in a fight Bill Cody was having with an older man. Both Bills crossed paths many times, and both were called “Wild Bill.”
Pony Express rider
Now, although Cody’s name does not appear in the official records of the Pony Express, there is significant evidence that he served two tours of duty as a rider. Cody was 14 years old when he began riding for the Pony Express in the spring of 1860, but, because he had already delivered messages between wagon trains for Russell, Majors, and Waddell, he was initially assigned a short 45-mile run. While some of Cody’s exploits as a rider were the creations of publicity agents, there is no doubt about the courage and dedication he showed while in the service of the Pony Express.