Buffalo Bill

Early life and education

Cody was born on February 26, 1846, on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa. His father, Isaac Cody, was born on September 5, 1811, in Toronto Township, Upper Canada, now part of Mississauga, Ontario, directly west of Toronto. Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock, Bill's mother, was born about 1817 in Trenton, New Jersey. She moved to Cincinnati to teach school, and there she met and married Isaac. She was a descendant of Josiah Bunting, a Quaker who had settled in Pennsylvania. There is no evidence to indicate Buffalo Bill was raised as a Quaker. In 1847 the couple moved to Ontario, having their son baptized in 1847, as William Cody, at the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County (present-day Peel Region, of which Mississauga is a part), not far from the farm of his father's family. The chapel was built with Cody money, and the land was donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township. They lived in Ontario for several years.

In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural Scott County, Iowa, for $2,000 (equivalent to $77,000 in 2025), and the family moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory. In the years before the Civil War, Kansas was overtaken by political and physical conflict over the slavery question in an episode called Bleeding Kansas. Isaac Cody was against slavery. He was invited to speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men often held meetings. His antislavery speech so angered the crowd that they threatened to kill him if he did not step down. A man jumped up and stabbed him twice with a Bowie knife. Rively, the store's owner, rushed Cody to get treatment, but he never fully recovered from his injuries.

In Kansas, the family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery supporters. Cody's father spent time away from home for his safety. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. Bill, despite his youth and being ill at the time, rode thirty miles (48 km) to warn his father. Isaac Cody went to Cleveland, Ohio, to organize a group of thirty families to bring back to Kansas, to add to the antislavery population. During his return trip, he caught a respiratory infection which, compounded by the lingering effects of his stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to his death in April 1857.

After his death, the family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill worked for the freight carrier Russell, Majors, and Waddell as a "boy extra". On horseback, he would ride up and down the length of a wagon train and deliver messages between the drivers and workmen. Next, he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the United States Army to Utah, to put down a rumored rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City.

Military services

After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War but was refused because of his young age. He began working with a freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In September 1863 Cody's mother died in Leavenworth, Kansas. Cody gave way to grief for two months, gambling and drinking. He had promised his mother he wouldn't enlist in the Union Army while she was alive, but one day, technically underage at age 17 and apparently while drunk, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry, and served until discharged in 1865.

In 1866, he reunited with his old friend Wild Bill Hickok in Junction City, Kansas, then serving as a scout. Cody enlisted as a scout himself at Fort Ellsworth and scouted between there and Fort Fletcher (later renamed and moved to Fort Hays). He was attached as a scout, variously, to Captain George Augustus Armes (Battle of the Saline River) and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (guide and impromptu horse race to Fort Larned). It was during this service at Fort Ellsworth that he met William Rose, with whom he would found the short-lived settlement of Rome.

In 1867, with the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway completing through Hays City and Rome, Cody was granted a leave of absence to hunt buffalo to supply railroad construction workers with meat. This endeavor continued into 1868, which saw his hunting contest with William Comstock.

Cody returned to Army service in 1868. From his post in Fort Larned, he performed an exceptional feat of riding as a lone dispatch courier from Fort Larned to Fort Zarah (escaping brief capture), Fort Zarah to Fort Hays, Fort Hays to Fort Dodge, Fort Dodge to Fort Larned, and, finally, Fort Larned to Fort Hays, a total of 350 miles in 58 hours through hostile territory, covering the last 35 miles on foot. In response, General Philip Sheridan assigned him Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry Regiment.

He was also Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry in later campaigns of the Plains Wars.

In January 1872, Cody was a scout for the highly publicized hunting expedition of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia.

Medal of Honor

Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for documented gallantry above and beyond the call of duty as an Army scout in the Indian Wars. It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to the Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals, designating the "Medal of Honor" as the highest military honor it could bestow. Subsequent regulations authorized the War Department to revoke prior Medal of Honor awards it considered not meeting requirements since the introduction of strict regulations promulgated under the 1917 law. Those regulations required the medal to be awarded for acts of bravery above and beyond the call of duty by officers or enlisted soldiers. The law was enacted days before Buffalo Bill died, so he never knew a law might rescind the medal awarded to him.

All civilian scout medals were rescinded since they did not appear to meet the basic criterion of being officers or enlisted soldiers, which had been expressly listed in every authorizing statute ever enacted for the Medal of Honor. Cody was one of five scouts affected. Their medals were stripped shortly after Cody died in 1917.

Cody's relatives objected, and, for over 72 years, they wrote repeatedly to the US Congress seeking reconsideration. All efforts failed, until a 1988 letter to the Senate from Cody's grandson was received by the office of senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming. There, a newly assigned legislative assistant (K. Yale) took up the cause in 1989. The legal brief he drafted and submitted to the Department of Defense on behalf of the relatives of Buffalo Bill argued that civilian scouts were technically officers, as their Native American counterparts were nominally scouts. However, the white civilian scouts were given the rank and pay of officers – both for retention purposes. Also, scouts were the equivalent of "reconnaissance" for the military and thus provided highly valued services. In addition, a practical reason was to avoid mistaking them for opponents in skirmishes.

Moreover, although civilian scouts might have normally been officers because of their highly valued skills, the military drawdown and related budget cuts after the Civil War left no billets available for the civilian scouts to fill, and thus they were relegated to a highly qualified status that treated them as valuable military assets without the designation or retirement benefits of officers. Nevertheless, they were treated as high-ranking military officials and had status of officers alongside their Native American brethren. The brief argued for retroactive restoration of the Medal of Honor to Buffalo Bill. The Department of Defense required the appeal to be adjudicated by the Army Board for Correction of Military Records. After months of deliberation, the Board agreed with the persuasive legal brief and made the decision to restore the Medal of Honor, not only to Buffalo Bill but also to several other civilian scouts whose medals had also been rescinded.

Nickname

Cody received the nickname "Buffalo Bill" after the American Civil War, when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo (American bison) meat. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months in 1867 and 1868. Cody and another hunter, Bill Comstock, competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48. Comstock, part Cheyenne and a noted hunter, scout, and interpreter, used a fast-shooting Henry repeating rifle, while Cody competed with a larger-caliber Springfield Model 1866, which he called Lucretia Borgia, after the notorious Italian noblewoman, the subject of a popular contemporary Gaetano Donizetti opera Lucrezia Borgia, based on Victor Hugo's play of the same name. Cody explained that while his formidable opponent, Comstock, chased after his buffalo, engaging from the rear of the herd and leaving a trail of killed buffalo "scattered over a distance of three miles", Cody – likening his strategy to a billiards player "nursing" his billiard balls during "a big run" – first rode his horse to the front of the herd to target the leaders, forcing the followers to one side, eventually causing them to circle and create an easy target, and dropping them close together.

Birth of the legend

In 1869, the 23-year-old Cody met Ned Buntline, who later published a story based on Cody's adventures (largely invented by the writer) in Street and Smith's New York Weekly and then published a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen, which was first serialized on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, beginning that December 15. Many other sequels followed by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from the 1870s through the early part of the twenty first century.

Playwright Frederick G. Maeder adapted Buntline's novel into the hit play Buffalo Bill which premiered at Niblo's Garden in 1872 with J. B. Studley in the title role. Cody attended this play while visiting New York which gave him the idea to portray himself on the stage. He later became world-famous for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a touring show which traveled around the United States, Great Britain, and Continental Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West. Emilio Salgari, a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West

In December 1872, Cody traveled to Chicago to make his stage debut with his friend Texas Jack Omohundro in The Scouts of the Prairie, one of the original Wild West shows produced by Ned Buntline. The effort was panned by critics – one critic compared Cody's acting to a "diffident schoolboy" – but the performer was a hit with the sold-out crowds.

In 1873, Cody invited Wild Bill Hickok to join the group in a new play called Scouts of the Plains. Hickok did not enjoy acting and often hid behind scenery; in one show, he shot at the spotlight when it focused on him. He was therefore released from the group after a few months. Cody founded the Buffalo Bill Combination in 1874, in which he performed for part of the year while scouting on the prairies the rest of the year. The troupe toured for ten years. Cody's part typically included a reenactment of an 1876 incident at Warbonnet Creek, where he claimed to have scalped a Cheyenne warrior.

In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska, Cody founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a circus-like attraction that toured annually. (Contrary to the popular misconception, the word Show was not a part of the title.) In 1886, Cody and Nate Salsbury, his theatrical manager, entered into partnership with Evelyn Booth (1860–1901), a big-game hunter and scion of the aristocratic Booth family. It was at this time Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Band was organized. The band was directed by William Sweeney, a cornet player who served as leader of the Cowboy Band from 1883 until 1913. Sweeney handled all of the musical arrangements and wrote a majority of the music performed by the Cowboy Band.

In 1893, Cody changed the title to Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World. The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included the US and another military, cowboys, American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their best attire. Turks, gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Georgians displayed their distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors would see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many historical western figures participated in the show. For example, Sitting Bull appeared with a band of 20 of his soldiers.

Cody's headline performers were well known in their own right. Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler, were sharpshooters, together with the likes of Gabriel Dumont and Lillian Smith. Performers re-enacted the riding of the Pony Express, Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies. The show was said to end with a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand, in which Cody portrayed General Custer, but this is more legend than fact. The finale was typically a portrayal of an Indian attack on a settler's cabin. Cody would ride in with an entourage of cowboys to defend a settler and his family. This finale was featured predominantly as early as 1886 but was not performed after 1907; it was used in 23 of 33 tours. Another celebrity appearing on the show was Calamity Jane, as a storyteller as of 1893. The show influenced many 20th-century portrayals of the West in cinema and literature.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West tours of Europe

Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured Europe eight times, the first four tours between 1887 and 1892, and the last four from 1902 to 1906.

The Wild West first went to London in 1887 as part of the American Exhibition, which coincided with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, requested a private preview of the Wild West performance; he was impressed enough to arrange a command performance for Queen Victoria. The Queen enjoyed the show and meeting the performers, setting the stage for another command performance on June 20, 1887, for her Jubilee guests. Royalty from all over Europe attended, including the future Kaiser Wilhelm II and the future King George V. These royal encounters provided Buffalo Bill's Wild West an endorsement and publicity that ensured its success. Also, at this time, Buffalo Bill was presented with written accolades from several of America's high ranking generals including William T. Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan and William H. Emory testifying to his service, bravery, and character. Among the presentations was a document signed by Governor John M. Thayer of Nebraska appointing Cody as aide-de-camp on the Governor's staff with the rank of colonel dated March 8, 1887. The rank had little official authority but the English press quickly capitalized on the new title of "Colonel Cody". Buffalo Bill's Wild West closed its successful London run in October 1887 after more than 300 performances, with more than 2.5 million tickets sold. The tour made stops in Birmingham and Manchester before returning to the United States in May 1888 for a short summer tour.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West returned to Europe in May 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille and featured the debut of the Eiffel Tower. On this tour, his portrait was painted by Europe's leading female painter Rosa Bonheur. The tour moved to the South of France and Barcelona, Spain, then on to Italy. While in Rome, a Wild West delegation was received by Pope Leo XIII. Buffalo Bill was disappointed that the condition of the Colosseum did not allow it to be a venue; however, at Verona, the Wild West did perform in the ancient Roman amphitheater. The tour finished with stops in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

In 1891 the show toured cities in Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Great Britain to close the season. Cody depended on several staffs to manage arrangements for touring with the large and complex show: in 1891 Major Arizona John Burke was the general manager for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Company; William Laugan [sic], supply agent; George C. Crager, Sioux interpreter, considered leader of relations with the Indians; and John Shangren, a native interpreter. In 1891, Buffalo Bill performed in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the Südstadt Quarter. The inhabitants of Südstadt are nicknamed Indianer (German for "American Indians") to this day, and the most accepted theory says that this is due to Buffalo Bill's show.

Life in Cody, Wyoming

In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of the town of Cody, the seat of Park County, in northwestern Wyoming. Today the Old Trail Town museum is at the center of the community and commemorates the traditions of Western life. Cody first passed through the region in the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town. Streets in the town were named after his associates: Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein, and Salsbury. The town was incorporated in 1901.

In November 1902, Cody opened the Irma Hotel, named after his daughter. He envisioned a growing number of tourists coming to Cody on the recently opened Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up Cody Road, along the north fork of the Shoshone River, to visit Yellowstone Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed the construction of the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Tepee in 1905 along Cody Road with the assistance of the artist and rancher Abraham Archibald Anderson.

Cody established the TE Ranch, located on the south fork of the Shoshone River about thirty-five miles from Cody. When he acquired the TE property, he stocked it with cattle sent from Nebraska and South Dakota. The new herd carried the TE brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for the Wild West show, and he bought more land to add to the ranch. He eventually held about eight thousand acres (12+1⁄2 square miles; 32 square kilometers) of private land for grazing operations and ran about a thousand head of cattle. He operated a dude ranch, pack-horse camping trips, and big-game hunting business at and from the TE Ranch. In his spacious ranch house, he entertained notable guests from Europe and America.

Cody founded the local newspaper, The Cody Enterprise, in 1899 with Col. John Peake.

Cody published his autobiography, The Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill, in 1879. Another autobiography, The Great West That Was: "Buffalo Bill's" Life Story, was serialized in Hearst's International Magazine from August 1916 to July 1917. and ghostwritten by James J. Montague. It contained several errors, in part because it was completed after Cody's death in January 1917. It was accompanied by illustrations by N. C. Wyeth.

Irrigation

Larry McMurtry, along with historians such as R. L. Wilson, asserted that at the turn of the 20th century, Cody was the most recognizable celebrity on Earth. While Cody's show brought an appreciation for the Western and American Indian cultures, he saw the American West change dramatically during his life. Bison herds, which had once numbered in the millions, were threatened with extinction. Railroads crossed the plains, barbed wire, and other types of fences divided the land for farmers and ranchers, and the once-threatening Indian tribes were confined to reservations. Wyoming's coal, oil and natural gas were beginning to be exploited toward the end of his life.

The Shoshone River was dammed for hydroelectric power and irrigation. In 1897 and 1899, Cody and his associates acquired from the State of Wyoming the right to take water from the Shoshone River to irrigate about 169,000 acres (680 km2) of land in the Big Horn Basin. They began developing a canal to carry water diverted from the river, but their plans did not include a water storage reservoir. Cody and his associates were unable to raise sufficient capital to complete their plan. Early in 1903, they joined with the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners in urging the federal government to step in and help with irrigation in the valley.

The Shoshone Project became one of the first federal water development projects undertaken by the newly formed Reclamation Service, later known as the Bureau of Reclamation. After Reclamation took over the project in 1903, investigating engineers recommended constructing a dam on the Shoshone River in the canyon west of Cody. Construction of the Shoshone Dam started in 1905, a year after the Shoshone Project was authorized. When it was completed in 1910, it was the tallest dam in the world. Almost three decades after its construction, the name of the dam and reservoir was changed to Buffalo Bill Dam by an act of Congress.

Marriage and children

Cody married Louisa Frederici on March 6, 1866, just a few days after his twentieth birthday. The couple met when Cody had traveled to St. Louis under his command during the Civil War. Cody's autobiography barely mentioned the courtship to Frederici but declared, "I now adored her above any other young lady I had ever seen." Cody suggested in letters and his autobiography that Frederici had pestered him into marriage, but he was aware that it was "very smart to be engaged." This rhetoric became pushed more and more in his explanations for marriage as the relationship between him and his wife began to decline.

Frederici stayed home with their children. Two of their children died young while the family was living in Rochester, New York. These two and a third child were buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, in Rochester. While his wife and children remained in North Platte, Bill stayed outside the home, hunting, scouting, and building up his acting career in the Wild West show. As Cody began to travel more frequently and to places farther from home, problems over infidelity, real or imagined, began to arise. These concerns grew so great that in 1893, Frederici showed up at his hotel room in Chicago unannounced and was led to "Mr. and Mrs. Cody's suite." Cody mentions in his autobiography that he was "embarrassed by the throng of beautiful ladies" who surrounded him both in the cast and the audiences, and this trend continued as he became involved with more and more actresses who were not afraid to show their attraction to him in front of an audience.

Cody filed for divorce in 1904, after 38 years of marriage. His decision was made after years of jealous arguments, bad blood between his wife and his sisters, and friction between the children and their father. By 1891, Cody had instructed his brother-in-law to handle Frederici's affairs and property, saying "I often feel sorry for her. She is a strange woman but I don't mind her – remember she is my wife – and let it go at that. If she gets cranky, just laugh at it, she can't help it." Cody hoped to keep the divorce quiet, to not disrupt his show or his stage persona, but Frederici had other ideas. Filing for divorce was scandalous in the early 20th century when marital unions were seen as binding for life. This furthered Cody's determination to get Frederici to agree to a "quiet legal separation," to avoid "war and publicity." The court records and depositions that were kept with the court case threatened to ruin Cody's respectability and credibility. His private life had not been open to the public before, and the application for divorce brought unwanted attention to the matter. Not only did townspeople feel the need to take sides in the divorce, but headlines rang out with information about Cody's alleged infidelities or Frederici's excesses.

Death

Cody died on January 10, 1917. He was baptized in the Catholic Church the day before his death by Father Christopher Walsh of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. He received a full Masonic funeral. Upon the news of Cody's death, tributes were made by King George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and President Woodrow Wilson. His funeral service was held at the Elks Lodge Hall in Denver. The governor of Wyoming, John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody, led the funeral procession to the cemetery.

At the time of his death, Cody's once-great fortune had dwindled to less than $100,000 (approximately $2,513,000 in 2025). He left his burial arrangements with his wife. She said that he had always said he wanted to be buried on Lookout Mountain, which was corroborated by their daughter Irma, Cody's sisters, and family friends. But other family members joined the people of Cody in saying that he should be buried in the town he founded.

On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Lookout Mountain, in Golden, Colorado, west of Denver, on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the Great Plains. His burial site was selected by his sister Mary Decker. In 1948, the Cody chapter of the American Legion offered a $10,000 reward (approximately $134,000 in 2025) to anyone who could steal Cody's body and deliver it to Cody, Wyoming. In response, the Denver chapter of the American Legion mounted a guard over the grave. There are still rumors about the true burial place of Buffalo Bill Cody. Although Lookout Mountain has a gravesite behind a fence and under concrete, there are claims that Cody, Wyoming, was the beneficiary of a body swap carried out before he was buried in Colorado and that he was instead laid to rest on top of Cedar Mountain in Cody.

On June 9, 1917, his show was sold to Archer Banker of Salina, Kansas, for $105,000 (approximately $2,639,000 in 2025).

Philosophy

As a frontier scout, Cody respected Native Americans and supported their civil rights. He employed many Native Americans, as he thought his show offered them good pay with a chance to improve their lives. He described them as "the former foe, present friend, the American" and once said, speaking of later events than the original frontier raids, that "every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government."

Cody supported the rights of women, voicing support for women's suffrage and equal pay. When asked about the suffrage movement in an interview with Omaha World Herald from June 4, 1894, he said, "I am in favor of women voting. Why not? Women are developing wonderfully just now and can do many things which they couldn't do twenty years ago." In another interview with The Milwaukee Journal from April 16, 1898, he said "Set that down in great big black type that Buffalo Bill favors woman suffrage… These fellows who prate about the women taking their places make me laugh… If a woman can do the same work that a man can do and do it just as well, she should have the same pay." Women such as Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane had legendary roles in his show, and later in life Cody continued to hire and treat women fairly.

In his shows, the Indians were usually depicted attacking stagecoaches and wagon trains and were driven off by cowboys and soldiers. Many family members traveled with the men; Cody encouraged the wives and children of his Native American performers, as part of the show, to set up camp just as they would in their homelands. He wanted the paying public to see the human side of the "fierce warriors".

Cody was known as a conservationist who spoke out against hide-hunting and advocated the establishment of a hunting season.

Cody as a Freemason

Cody was active in the concordant bodies of the fraternal organization of Freemasonry having been initiated in Platte Valley Lodge No. 32, in North Platte, Nebraska, on March 5, 1870. He received his second and third degrees on April 2, 1870, and January 10, 1871, respectively. He became a Knight Templar in 1889 and received his 32nd degree in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1894.

Works

Scouts of the Prairie (1872) play cast

Scouts of the Plains (1873) by Buffalo Bill Combination troupe

Red Right Hand (1876)

The Life Of Honorable William F. Cody (1879)

Buffalo Bill's Wild West (1883–1913) touring show

The Wild West in England (1888)

Buffalo Bill and Escort (1897) film cast

Cody Enterprise (1899–), Wyoming town newspaper

Buffalo Bill's Wild West (1900–1903, 1910) films cast

The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (1904) ISBN 9781977910646

True Tales of the Plains (1908) ISBN 9781104514747

Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Far East (1910) film cast

Col. W.F. Cody (Buffalo Bill) Historical Pictures Company (1913) films production

The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (1914) film cast

Indian Wars (1914) film cast

The Adventures of Buffalo Bill (1917) film cast

The Buffalo Bill Show (1917) film cast

Legacy and honors

In 1872, Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor for service as a civilian scout to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, for "gallantry in action" at Loupe Forke, Platte River, Nebraska. In 1917, after Congress revised the standards for the award, the U.S. Army removed from the rolls 911 medals previously awarded to civilians or for actions that would not warrant a Medal of Honor under the new higher standards. Cody's medal was among those revoked. In 1977, Congress began reviewing numerous cases; it reinstated the medals for Cody and four other civilian scouts on June 12, 1989.

In 1891, a bust of Cody was created by Anton Friedrich Scholl for the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

Cody was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1967.

The Buffalo Bill Cody Scenic Byway through the Shoshone National Forest is a National Forest Scenic Byway and Wyoming Scenic Byway named after Buffalo Bill.

Because of his funding and planning with The Shoshone Project The Buffalo Bill Dam, The Buffalo Bill Reservoir created by the dam, and the Buffalo Bill State Park at the reservoir are all named after him.

The Buffalo Bill Ranch State Park, also known as the Scout's Rest Ranch in North Platte, Nebraska was designated as a Nebraska State Historical Park in 1965, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2021.

Cody was honored by two U.S. postage stamps. One was a fifteen-cent Great Americans series stamp.

The Buffalo Bill Center of the West was founded in Cody, Wyoming. The town is named in his honor.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians is a collaborative project of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and the history department of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, with assistance from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. This digital history project contains letters, official programs, newspaper reports, posters, and photographs. The project highlights the social and cultural forces that shaped how American Indians were defined, debated, contested, and controlled in this period. This project was based on the Papers of William F. Cody project of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

Statues

"The Scout" 1924, by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, in Cody, Wyoming

"Buffalo Bill – Plainsman" 1976, by Bob Scriver, in Cody, Wyoming

"The Spirit of Cody" 1999 by Jeffery B. Rudolph in Cody, Wyoming

"Born Under a Wandering Star" by Vic Payne in Cody, Wyoming

"Howdy Folks" 2000, by Jeffery Rudolph in Golden, Colorado

"Buffalo Bill Monument" 2004 by Charlie Norton in Oakley, Kansas

"Buffalo Bill " at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City

"Buffalo Bill Statue" 2006 at Dennistoun in Glasgow

"America" 1876 by John Bell (sculptor), a section of the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, London features a western figure that bears a resemblance to Buffalo Bill standing next to an American Bison.

Representation in popular culture

Buffalo Bill has been portrayed in many literary, musical, and theatrical works, movies, and television shows, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, when Westerns were most popular. Some examples are listed below.

Film

1926: With Buffalo Bill on the U. P. Trail, starring Roy Stewart as Buffalo Bill

1931: Battling with Buffalo Bill, starring Tom Tyler as Buffalo Bill

1935: The Miracle Rider, starring Tex Cooper as Buffalo Bill

1935: Annie Oakley, starring Moroni Olsen as Buffalo Bill

1936: The Plainsman, starring James Ellison as Buffalo Bill.

1940: Young Buffalo Bill, starring Roy Rogers as Buffalo Bill

1944: Buffalo Bill, starring Joel McCrea as Buffalo Bill

1950: Cody of the Pony Express, starring Dickie Moore as Buffalo Bill

1950: Annie Get Your Gun, starring Louis Calhern as Buffalo Bill

1952: Buffalo Bill in Tomahawk Territory, starring Clayton Moore as Buffalo Bill

1953: Pony Express, starring Charlton Heston as Buffalo Bill

1954: Riding with Buffalo Bill, starring Marshall Reed as Buffalo Bill

1963: The Raiders, starring Jim McMullan as Buffalo Bill

1964: Buffalo Bill, Hero of the Far West, starring Gordon Scott as Buffalo Bill

1965: Seven Hours of Gunfire, starring Rik Van Nutter as Buffalo Bill

Literature

Buffalo Bill Dime novel series

1901–1910: Buffalo Bill Stories – A dime novel publication with 500 issues featuring Buffalo Bill, published by Street & Smith

1912–1919: New Buffalo Bill Weekly – A dime novel publication with about 356 issues featuring Buffalo Bill, published by Street & Smith

1917–1925: Buffalo Bill Border Stories – A dime novel publication with about 211 issues featuring Buffalo Bill, published by Street & Smith

1907: A Horse's Tale, by Mark Twain, features Buffalo Bill and his horse.

1911: In the thirteenth entry of Leon Sazie's Zigomar series, the fictional detective Nick Carter is Buffalo Bill's cousin, and the two cousins are working under P. T. Barnum at the time of the story.

1920: "Buffalo Bill's Defunct" is a poem by E. E. Cummings. In Poetry, edited by J. Hunter, it is entitled "Portrait".

1920: "Buffalo Bill's Life Story", published by Cosmopolitan, NY, and illustrated by N.C. Wyeth.

1988: In the novel and film The Silence of the Lambs, the serial killer at large is nicknamed Buffalo Bill by the FBI because he "skins his humps".

Comics

Buffalo Bill, Scout of Scouts (1927), comic strip by J. Carrol Mansfield

Buffalo Bill (1950-1955), comic strip by Fred Meagher, United Feature Syndicate

Buffalo Bill (1950-1951), comic book published by Youthful Magazines

Music

The vocal quartet Buffalo Bills was a prominent barbershop quartet in the 1950s and 1960s, formed in Buffalo, New York in 1947, the name inspired by the professional football team which began that year in Buffalo. The group starred in the Broadway and Hollywood versions of Meredith Willson's musical comedy The Music Man.

The cover art for the 2011 album Goblin, by Tyler, the Creator, features a picture of Buffalo Bill at the age of 19.

"Bufalo Bill", a song by singer Francesco De Gregori

"Buffalo Bill", a song by rapper Eminem

"Buffalo Bill", a song by singer Moxie Raia

"Buffalo Bill", a song by singer Willi Carlisle

The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, a song by the Beatles

"Já a můj kůň", a song by Czech pop rock band Chinaski

Theater

Buffalo Bill is a character in the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, in the 1968 play Indians, by Arthur Kopit.

Since 2016 for select weeks during the summer, nonprofit Rocky Mountain Dance Theatre has produced their original, Wild West Spectacular the Musical, a full-length historical and hysterical musical all about Buffalo Bill and his wild west show showing live at the historic Cody Theatre in downtown Cody, Wyoming, the town he founded: Cody, Wyoming

Sports

The Buffalo Bills in the National Football League are named after Buffalo Bill.

KAA Ghent, a football club, sports the name in its nickname "The Buffalo's".

Attended a Rangers FC match at Ibrox Stadium in November 1891.

Television

Cody was featured as a historical character on such television series about the West as The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson and Bonanza. He has been portrayed as an elder statesman or as a flamboyant, self-serving exhibitionist.

Cody was portrayed by Britt Lomond in the episode "A Legend of Buffalo Bill" (1959) of the ABC/Warner Brothers Western television series Colt .45.

Cody was portrayed by John Lupton in a few episodes of Death Valley Days (1959–1962).

In The Young Riders, a highly fictionalized story of the Pony Express, Cody was portrayed by Stephen Baldwin.

Buffalo Bill Cody was portrayed by Dennis Weaver in season one of Lonesome Dove: The Series.

Mister Peabody and Sherman visited Buffalo Bill in episode 59 of "Peabody's Improbable History" titled "Buffalo Bill" on January 9, 1962.

The photo of Cody and Sitting Bull was used in the titles of The Real West which ran on A&E TV from 1991 to 1994 and later on The History Channel.

Cody, portrayed by Nicholas Campbell, and his Wild West show are featured in episode 1 of season 2 "Mild Mild West" (February 10, 2009) of the Canadian television period detective series Murdoch Mysteries.

Cody is prominently featured in Ken Burns PBS documentary The American Buffalo that premiered on October 16, 2023.