THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412090283
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Olde Towne Journal
SOURCE: Alan Flanders
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines
Portsmouth has seen its share of naval historic firsts, but it has to be one of history's great ironies that the greatest legend of the ``Old West'' made his final appearance here Nov. 11, 1916.
A bronze plaque today marks the spot at One High Street where Colonel William Frederick Cody, known throughout the world by that time as ``Buffalo Bill,'' arrived with his Wild West Show.
Although the clouds of World War I already had spread to the United States with the sinking of the passenger liner Lusitania and the capture and internment of German searaiders Prinz Eitel Frederick and Kron Prinz Wilhelm at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, talk about international politics was dropped with the arrival of Buffalo Bill.
Just before the doors of the train opened, a brass band began to play and Mayor James T. Hanvey, followed by several cars full of dignitaries, arrived for the greeting and parade to the city's fair grounds at Washington and Lincoln streets.
In minutes, the station was turned into a sea of local politicians, school children, sailors and ordinary citizens straining to get a glimpse of one of America's most colorful living legends.
After much hoopla, the crowd fell silent as Buffalo Bill Cody, the very epitome of America's Western hero, stood before them. Even at 70 years old, his appearance did not disappoint.
Dressed in a long buckskin coat and over-the-knee length calvary boots, he lifted his wide-brimmed sombrero, revealing his shoulder-length, curling grey hair, which matched the color of his drooping mustache and goatee, and waved to the crowd of well-wishers.
Every inch of him a timeless idol.
Not since Robert E. Lee had visited Portsmouth 45 years earlier had there been such unbridled enthusiasm for the arrival of a single person. But this was no ordinary mortal, but a living legend. Bigger than life. The one and only Buffalo Bill.
It was more from myths past down over the decades than any written or documented source that the legend of Buffalo Bill grew to bigger-than-life proportions.
Even had he not embellished his adventures as a buffalo hunter for the Union Pacific Railroad or as a U.S. Calvary Indian scout, his Wild West Show would have been a success as the last vestiges of an Old West that had given way to progress.
By the 1870s, America was linked by a railroad from coast to coast. Telegraph lines and barbed wire criss-crossed the open prairies where before only endless paths of buffalo had tread. Trading posts were becoming towns. The West was won.
Fortunately by 1882, Ned Buntline, inventor of the long-barreled Buntline Special, and a long-time Cody friend, suggested that Buffalo Bill use his personal ties to frontiersmen such as James Butler ``Wild Bill'' Hickok, John B. ``Texas Jack'' Omohundro, Phoebe Anne Moses (Annie Oakley), and Indian leaders such as Sitting Bull and Red Shirt to form a traveling theater production depicting their adventures in taming the West.
It didn't take long for an aging Buffalo Bill to realize that that there might be more gold in promotions and side-shows than taming the Old West. His friends were happy to sign on.
Cody also hired hundreds of Indian warriors, purchased a stage coach from which the show's heroes would fight off an attack in one of the programs most popular numbers, and even had a settler's cabin built as a prop to be raided by Indians - to the delight of thousands of spectators.
Cody had no idea how popular the show would become on both sides of the Atlantic.
Several trips to England and the continent produced royal command performances and audiences with Queen Victoria and personal friendships with the Romanovs and presidents. Pleasing the crowned heads of Europe was good for business, but seeing school children stand and cheer his Rough Riders as they rode into the Big Top was closest to Cody's heart.
But by the time of his last show, chronic ill health had taken its toll. Sitting in his hotel room, he was busy planning a new season without any idea that this was to be his finale.
Returning to his ranch in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, he died Jan. 10, 1917. Western Union immediately sent a ``clear the line'' message across the country announcing his death to the nation and the world. Condolences arrived from President Woodrow Wilson, from King George V and Queen Mary of England, and then from across the United States.
What Buffalo Bill left in Portsmouth was a legacy of an American West and a national innocence that already was gone by the time his show had arrived.
He also left behind a countless number of school boys who dream about growing up and being cowboys. We have Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show to thank for that. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
A poster for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
by CNB