1885 - Buffalo Bill

 “Buffalo Bill is in town. The town is flooded with white sombreros and red paint. Shut your eyes and a string of mustangs, mules, cowboys and Indians float before them. Open them and the strange procession is still there.”

Hamilton Spectator.    August 27, 1885

It was one of the most-anticipated street parades ever to take place in the city of Hamilton :

“Thousands of people thronged the streets yesterday to watch the procession. Barnum’s circus never drew a larger crowd. The corner of King and James streets was almost impassable. It would have been entirely so had it not been for the policemen.”¹

¹ “Wild Western Scenes : Buffalo Bill’s Great Show in Hamilton”

Hamilton Spectator.  August 27, 1885.

It was a long, colorful parade, led by one of the most world-famous individuals of the day:

“Buffalo Bill himself headed the procession. A hackful of Indians came next. Nate Salsbury was not among them. More Indians on horseback. A band. Cowboys. Some pack mules. A pretty girl on a pretty horse. A dilapidated coach drawn by six mules and carrying a couple of Indian women. Then Indians and cowboys in single file to the end. Some of them carried banners.”¹

The parade was well-received, especially by those of the younger set:

“Hundreds of small boys followed the processionists. Thy yelled like mad and flung their hats in the air. The fever was upon them. Last night they dreamed of shooting Indians, and rescuing fair maidens from the clutches of the reckless dime store denizens of the boundless west.”¹

The purpose of the street parade was to promote the huge Wild West Show, scheduled to take place in an area just beyond the eastern limits of the city:

“The afternoon was chilly, but the air was bracing and the sun shone brightly. It was not a bad day for an open air exhibition, and a big crowd went down to Simon James’ driving park to see the Wild West show. The special trains over the great Western Railway and Northern and Northwestern railway lines were crowded, and a great number of people drove down.”

The grounds of the race track had been utterly transformed:

“Before the performance, the crowd strolled about the ground examining the horses and mules and steers and the rickety Deadwood stage coach and the other paraphernalia of the show, watching at a respectful distance the three buffalo and the elk, and peering curiously into the tents and wigwams at the east end of the park. The wigwams were the greatest objects of curiosity. Most of the Indians who inhabited them were stretched at full length, apparently asleep; others were arranging their toilet, bedaubing a few more artistic touches of paint on their faces; while, in one or two lodges, several braves were absorbed over a game that looked like dominoes. But no matter what they were doing, they all regarded with stolid indifference the spectators who intruded on their privacy.”¹

The Wild West Show was an amazing series of events, which the Spectator reporter at the show was challenged to describe them for the paper’s readers, but did so successfully:

“The performance was given on and inside the track, in front of the grandstand which was packed with humanity as it had never been before. It was exciting and interesting all through, and to many who had read romantic and thrilling tales of the Wild West but had never seen anything of the kind, it was instructive. It is a bold and original idea, this, of reproducing, in mimic, the scenes which have been blood-curdling realities, and which have furnished material for numberless romances to fire the soul and disturb the dreams of English-speaking youth in both hemispheres, but, as most bold and original schemes are, the scheme is successful; and Buffalo Bill has already made a fortune out of his Wild West Show. He was himself the principal attraction, and came in for the lion’s share of the applause. When he dashed down the track on his handsome dappled grey pony, and suddenly stopping, wheeled around and faced the grandstand, it was not necessary for the ‘lecturer’ to inform the people he was ‘Hon. W. F. Cody,’ better known as ‘Buffalo Bill.’

“Mr. Cody is a splendid specimen of manly beauty. He rides his horse as if he were part of the animal, and in his embroidered, magenta hunting shirt and white sombrero, and with his long hair flying in the breeze, he looks every inch the ideal scout, and is a figure picturesque and attractive enough to make an artist’s eyes glow with delight and cause a woman’s heart to beat faster. Buffalo Bill’s record is well-known, and it is hardly necessary to say that he is the most famous and successful of the western scouts and frontiersmen since Kit Carson. But there were other personages in the show who were also regarded with interest. The old Sioux chief, Sitting Bull, was an object of great curiosity. He wore a crimson tunic, and his head and back were covered with tufts of eagle feathers. The famous old warrior didn’t take an active part in the performance, excepting to lead the war dance. Buck Taylor, ‘the king of the cowboys,’ who was here with Dr. Carver last fall, was received with loud applause by the crowd. The people welcomed the big, good-humored, dashing fellow as an old friend.

“The performance lasted nearly two hours and the interest never flagged. It began with a grand processional parade in which the whole troupe of Indians and cowboys appeared, all mounted. The events followed without a pause. There was a close race between a Cowboy, a Mexican and an Indian. Billy Johnson showed how quickly the pony express rider can change horses. A race between a mounted Indian and an Indian on foot was won by the latter. A general skirmish between Indians and cowboys occurred, in which a great quantity of blank cartridge was fired, and in the course of combat Buffalo Bill showed how he killed Yellow Hand in single combat and took his scalp in 1876. Johnny Baker, ‘the Cowboy Kid,’ did some wonderful rifle shooting at short range, holding his rifle in a dozen difficult positions and never failing to hit the mark. Miss Annie Oakley also did some clever marksmanship (or rather markswomanship) with both rifle and shotgun. But the best shooting was done by Buffalo Bill himself. He shot at 24 clay pigeons sprung from a trap, hitting 21 and missing 3 in one minute and 18 seconds. He also did some splendid shooting with his horse running at full speed. An Indian galloping alongside him flung about a dozen balls in the air in quick succession, and Mr. Cody broke every one of them. The riding of bucking horses by cowboys was greatly enjoyed. One of the riders had a narrow escape from being injured. The horse reared so high that it was impossible for its rider to keep his seat and he tumbled over on his back and came near being trampled on. Buck Taylor gave an exhibition of his perfect horsemanship – leaning down, and picking up his hat and handkerchief from the ground, while his horse was galloping at full speed. The Indian dances were grotesque and funny, but rather tame. The warriors, gathered in a circle, stamped their feet and jerked their bodies in time to the monotonous music from a coupe of tom-toms, keeping up a continuous falsetto squeaking and looking as hideous as possible. The Indian war dance is peculiar, but does not bear upon the mind of the spectator a very vivid idea of the poetry of motion. The corn dance appears to be the war dance with the final war whoop omitted. For this reason, aboriginal terpsichorean art was tame., the attack on the Deadwood stage was just the opposite. The stage was attacked by a score of mounted Indians, for a time it looked as if the passengers and guards would be utterly paralysed by the tremendous noise of the blank cartridge and the terrific war whoops of the painted warriors; but presently a band of cowboys came to the rescue, and as they could fire blank cartridge more quickly than the red men and could yell louder too, the red men were soon put to flight, but not before two or three of the painted savages had carefully dismounted and lain down and died. The stage coach was drawn by six mules, and driven by a gentleman who, the master of ceremonies said had been a bosom friend of the famed Hank Monk. At the end sat ‘Con’ Grover, the cowboy sheriff of the Platte. He was sheriff of Lincoln county, Neb, and in the graphic words of the M.C., ‘he had made the county, which had been the home of hoodlums and desperadoes, a haven of peace and repose.’ The gallant sheriff looked anything but the personification of peace and repose, with his rifle in his hand and a formidable array of revolvers and bowie knives in his belt. After the desperate encounter just mentioned, Mustang Jack (known in civilization as Geo. W. Hamilton) gave an exhibition of high jumping, in which he, probably, excels any living man. He made a standing leap with dumb-bells over a horse of ordinary height. The grand finale of the show was an attack by Indians on a settler’s cabin, and the rescue of the settler and his family by a band of cowboys and Mexicans after a desperate and deadly conflict in which all the blank cartridge was used that was left over from the previous battle.

“The cowboys’ brass band was present throughout the performance, playing most of the time. Everything the band played, it played well – excepting God Save the Queen.”¹

^{Above - Buffalo Bill, pictured with Sitting Bull
Below - Annie Oakley.}