Greetings family, friends and neighbors! Famed scout, guide and showman "Buffalo Bill" Cody brought his amazing Wild West Show to the West Coast several times between 1877 and 1913. Today's Snippet provides a glance into the historic traveling exhibition visit to the Bay Area ...... Bill 

Historic Snippets 

BUFFALO BILL’S WILD WEST SHOW 

Cody’s advance staff traveled into the Bay Area weeks ahead of 

the Wild West Show caravan to begin obtaining licenses, and 

renting fifteen acres of open space for upcoming performances in 

San Francisco, Oakland and in San Jose. In addition to begin 

publicizing the upcoming events, the staff also made arrangements 

for the purchase tons of flour, meat, coffee and other supplies for 

up to five hundred cast and crew members, hundreds of show and 

draft horses, a couple of elephants and a small herd of buffalo. 

The epic show traveled from town to town with two trains, fifty flat 

cars loaded with wagons, box cars, cattle cars, sleeping cars, 

power and commissary cars. The outdoor traveling show also 

carried it’s own grandstands and acres of canvas covering to seat 

twenty thousand spectators. 

At it’s peak in the late 1890’s plainsman, scout and showman 

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show was making 

hundreds of performances a year and traveled over eleven 

thousand miles in the United States and in Europe entertaining 

millions of eager attendees. Cody traveled to Northern California 

with his extensive cast, crew and huge menagerie several times 

between 1877 and 1913. 

As the orator boomed the script and Cody’s cowboy band created 

mood setting music in the huge outdoor arena, the stereotyped 

cowboy and native American performers would kickoff their two 

hour series of highly anticipated well known skits, tableau’s and 

demonstrations. The riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks on 

wagon trains, stage coach robberies, a buffalo stampede and the 

grand finale re-enactment of Custer’s Last Stand were 

interspersed with shooting, roping and riding demonstrations by 

headliner star performers including the famous Annie Oakley. 

Following the elaborate show comprised of hundreds of costumed 

performers, trained animals and the appearance of Buffalo Bill 

Cody himself, the entire show would be struck, loaded back onto 

the trains and moved overnight to the next town where the 

complex choreographed operation would be repeated. 

With the general fading of interest in the “old west”, 

smaller audiences, increasing costs and a four thousand dollar a 

day overhead, and the growing popularity of motion pictures and 

professional sports, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show made it’s final 

Bay Area appearance in 1913, just months before going bankrupt 

and disbanding. 

True to nature, showman and entrepreneur William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody immediately went about getting into the motion picture business by seeking backing to shoot and distribute The Indian Wars, a five reel silent film. 

Contemporary postcard from the collection of Bill Ralph