EDUCATORS ’ PERSPECTIVE
estimates of cost so they would know how much stock they were going to issue , a key point with any potential investor . Without better organization from the top , however , they all remained confused and the prospects of the company remained too murky to attract capital .”
In 1896 , the company issued $ 50,000 in bonds , $ 30,000 of which was subscribed to by Phoebe Hearst , the wealthy widow of Beck ’ s old friend Senator George Hearst and mother of William Randolph Hearst . The unsold remainder of the issue failed to sell and was cancelled .
Challenges to the project were manifold , not the least of which was the area ’ s remoteness . There was no railroad access to the Basin when the project began . Red Lodge , Montana , a two-day journey on primitive roads , was the nearest place to obtain supplies . 7 Although railroad service to Cody , Wyoming was finally established in 1901 , the journey from any major metropolitan area continued to be long and wearisome .
For the canal company to succeed , the sparsely populated region needed to attract settlers . This was no small task given the area ’ s inaccessibility . To that end , Cody and his investment partners founded a town along the banks of the Stinking Water River in 1896 . The name of the river was problematic : Who would want to live next to the Stinking Water ?
Wyoming state engineer Elwood Mead , who worked closely with the canal company , began referring to it as the Shoshone River in 1892 . Although the river ’ s name was not officially changed until 1901 , the canal company began calling it the Shoshone River in all its advertisements and publications . The new name was also reflected in the name of the company : the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company . Moreover , the fledgling town was initially named Shoshone , but when the US Post Office rejected the name , company officials eventually settled on Cody .
Construction on the canal proceeded in fits and starts . Financial difficulties , labor and supply shortages and unexpected technical difficulties plagued progress . Water from the canal reached Cody in the spring of 1897 , but the canal immediately sprung significant leaks in an area where
Buffalo Bill the “ Showman ,” circa 1909 .
the canal had been dug through sandstone interlaced with veins of gypsum . The gypsum was responsible for the leaks and had to be continually monitored and patched . The company ’ s completed canal was a disappointment , and its town was a mere wide spot in the road .
In hindsight , Cody and company should have seen the obvious signs in 1897 , cut their losses and terminated the project . But Cody stubbornly believed in the area , in the project and most of all in himself . He continued to promote the canal project well into the new century . In the next “ Educators ’ Perspective ,” we will examine the fallout of Cody ’ s misplaced faith .
Brian Grinder is a professor at Eastern Washington University and a member of Financial History ’ s editorial board . Dr . Dan Cooper is the president of Active Learning Technologies .
McCracken Research Library , Buffalo Bill Center of the West
Notes 1 . This letter can be found in in Blackstone
( 1988 ), pages 23 and 25 .
2 . Christensen ( 2002 ) cites an article in the Red Lodge Picket that illustrates the allure of dime novels in the 19th century :
A RUNAWAY KID
Johnny Southward , an 11-year-old , took the dime novel notion of starting out on his own hook . He borrowed a horse from his father for the occasion and rode to Billings preparatory to taking a freight train for the West . His father learning of his whereabouts went down to the train and captured the runaway , who was glad enough to come back home . ( May 14 , 1892 , page 3 )
This young boy who lived in the West was , according to Christensen , moving toward something “… that perhaps existed only in his , and millions of other Americans ’ imagination .” Russell ( 1960 ) includes over seven pages of Buffalo Bill dime novels in his bibliography .
3 . Goetzmann and Goetzmann ( 2009 ) write , “ On the night of December 16 , 1872 , the boisterous audience at Chicago ’ s popular playhouse the Amphitheater , witnessed a poorly acted melodrama that had been written in four hours , starring two men who had never before appeared on the stage . No one could have known that The Scouts of the Prairie was a performance that would change American entertainment forever — it was the first ‘ Western .’” A New York Daily Herald theater critic noted that “… ‘ Buffalo Bill ,’… occasionally called by the refined people of the Eastern cities ‘ Bison Bill ,’ is a good looking fellow , tall and straight as an arrow , but ridiculous as an actor . Texas Jack … is not quite so good looking , not so tall , not so straight and not so ridiculous … Everything was so wonderfully bad that it was almost good .”
4 . According to Warren ( 2006 ), “ Cody persuaded many that his entertainment was genuine in part by refusing to call it a show at all . Its official name was ‘ Buffalo Bill ’ s Wild West ,’ as if it were a real place .”
5 . Similarly , Blackstone writes , “ But William F . Cody was more concerned with his business ventures in the West than he was with his new-found fame . He believed
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