William "Buffalo Bill" Frederick Cody (1846 - 1917), frontiersman and entertainer. William Cody was born February 26, 1846, in Scott County, Iowa to Isaac Cody and Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock. In 1854, the family moved to the Salt Creek Valley in Kansas. After his father’s death in 1857, William Cody’s formal education was sporadic, as he worked to support himself as an ox-team driver and express messenger.

At the age of thirteen Cody joined a party headed for Denver, Colorado in search of gold, later signing up with a trapping expedition. In 1860 Cody returned to Kansas and became a rider for the Pony Express. After the start of the Civil War he joined a group of anti-slavery guerrillas based in Kansas and later the Ninth Kansas Volunteers hired him as a scout and a guide. In 1864 Cody enlisted as a private in Company F of the Seventh Kansas Volunteer Cavalry.

Cody married Louisa Frederic in St. Louis, Missouri in 1866 and again returned to Kansas. In 1867 Cody contracted to provide meat for railroad workers, which he did by killing twelve buffalo a day, earning the sobriquet "Buffalo Bill." He was hired by the army as a scout, a position he held for the next several years, participating in several expeditions against Indians. Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor for heroic actions during an engagement with Indians in April, 1872; his name was later struck from the rolls because he was a civilian at the time.

Cody began to gain some national fame by 1869. He was the subject of a serial in New York Weekly , "Buffalo Bill, the King of the Border Men." In January, 1872, Cody guided a hunting expedition for Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, entertaining the party by putting on his first Wild West Show, an event that was reported in newspapers across the country. Later that year Cody returned east to star with another frontiersman, Texas Jack, in "The Scouts of the Prairie." Following the success of the play, Cody was in high demand on the theatrical circuit. Cody also added to his reputation through the writing of dime novels and serials, which did not actually document his adventures but did serve to publicize his theatrical productions.

For the next several years Cody scouted for the army and guided hunting parties during the summer months and toured in plays from fall to spring. Cody last served as scout during August, 1876, when he participated in General George Crook’s Big Horn and Yellowstone Expedition. Some of Cody’s experiences on the frontier provided material for his plays and Wild West Shows, such as the killing of Chief Yellow Hand during the Sioux War of 1876.

On July 4, 1883 in North Platte, Nebraska Cody produced the "Old Glory Blowout," a forerunner to the rodeo and the genesis of his Wild West Show. Cody’s touring Wild West Show was an outdoor extravaganza which included among its attractions recreations of the Pony Express and Indian attacks upon the Cheyenne to Deadwood stage. Annie Oakley, a trick shooter known as "Little Sure Shot," joined the tour in 1884 and Sitting Bull, the famed Sioux chief, toured with the show in 1885.

In 1887 Cody took his entourage to Europe, with return engagements in 1889 and 1891. At the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, over six million patrons attended, making Buffalo Bill and his western show the main attraction. Cody attempted to retire from touring in 1912 but within two years continuing financial problems forced him to join the Sells-Floto Circus and later, for his final tour in 1916, the Miller Brothers and Arlington 101 Ranch Wild West.

While not always successful as a business man, Cody was varied in his interests. Among his more interesting endeavors was the attempt to develop Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin, one of the last areas of the country to be settled, at the turn of the century. A project of the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company, of which Cody served as president, the venture attempted to construct the Cody Canal in an effort to irrigate the area’s arid landscape. Although the private venture failed, the town of Cody was founded as a result. With the construction of the Shoshone Dam, completed in 1910 and later renamed the Buffalo Bill Dam, the irrigation project was finally completed under the auspices of the federal government.

Cody’s later life was characterized continued financial difficulties and personal problems. In 1905, after nearly forty years of marriage and four children, Cody and his wife became embroiled in bitter divorce action. Cody’s reputation was tarnished, although the petition was never approved and the couple remained married until his death. Cody died on January 10, 1917 in Denver, after a short illness. Colorado’s legislature passed a special resolution which authorized that Cody’s body lie in the state capitol for one day, during which time twenty-five thousand people paid their respects. Cody was eventually buried in Colorado, in a steel vault near the top of Lookout Mountain. Ironically, Cody, an authentic frontier hero, helped transform the real West, through his Wild West show, into the romantic, mythic West still popular today.

Nominee submitted by Rick Ewig.