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The Town Father
I couldn’t miss Cody’s fondness for Gen-
eral William F. Cody, better known as Buf-
falo Bill. All sorts of entities bore his name,
inspiring a curiosity easily quenched. I
joined Exclusive Tours Assistant Dana Har-
rington for a quick immersion into the life
and times of the famed 19th-century West-
ern legend at the Smithsonian-affiliated
Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
“Bill was born a storyteller,” Harrington
said as our small tour group entered the
center’s Buffalo Bill Museum. As we passed
exhibits from Cody’s life, including a life-
sized buffalo, Harrington ran through the
highlights.
Born William F. Cody near LeClair, Iowa
in 1846, Buffalo Bill was one of the most fa-
mous characters of his time. Autobiograph-
ical tales of his many professed
occupations begin when he was around 10
years old delivering messages on horse-
back, a talent he parlayed into a fraught
position with the Pony Express. The job was
so perilous ads required “young skinny wiry
fellows,” preferably orphans, who were
“willing to risk death daily.” Cody went on
to work as a Scout for the US Army, a
fighter with the cavalry during the Civil
War, and back again as Army scout in the
Indian Wars of the 1880s. His prowess as a
prodigious bison hunter on the Great Plains
providing food for crews for the Kansas Pa-
cific Railroad earned him the title of Buf-
falo Bill, a name he promoted with fervor.
Cody was also a born showman who be-
gan garnering fame in his 20s. Writer Ned
Bunting began extolling tales of Buffalo Bill
in articles and books in the late 1870s and
wrote the play Scouts of the Prairie with
Cody as the star. Hooked on the spotlight,
Cody continued starring in a series of pro-
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