William F Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, is the subject of the exhibition of the summer at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West is being billed as a world premiere. Among the 250 items on display are items from private collections in the United States never previously shown to the public.

Exhibits include an 1867 stagecoach, purchased by Buffalo Bill for $1,800 in 1911; a .44 Remington revolver taken from an Indian sub-chief, Yellow Hand, whom Buffalo Bill killed in battle in 1876; a de-luxe 1873 Winchester Rifle; Annie Oakley's gold-plated single-shot rifle; and a gold and diamond pendant presented to the flamboyant showman in 1892 by Queen Victoria.

Born in 1846, one of eight children, William Cody's real-life adventures in the Wild West were driven by necessity. After the death of his father when Cody was 11, he became a mounted messenger.

His mother died when he was 17. Long before his 20th birthday he was a veteran of the Civil War.

He married at 19 and hunted buffalo to feed railway workers. From 1868 to 1877 he scouted for the US Army and took part in the Indian Wars of 1876. In 1872 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour for trailing and then attacking a party of Indians who had stolen Army horses.

By the mid-1880s, when Cody transformed himself into Buffalo Bill, the West was all but tamed. Why else would an Indian as uncompromising as Sitting Bull have agreed to take part in Buffalo Bill's 1885 Wild West spectacular?

Over 30 years this show grew massively and toured the world. Fifty-two boxcars were needed to transport the show by rail across America. Millions saw it. The show either changed their view of the West or supplied them with images which the movies would turn into clichs.

The show first came to England in 1887, and returned in 1892 and 1903-4. It was supposed to take place on two days in October 1903 at Leeds Road, Thornbury, but severe storms led to one of the shows being cancelled. Buffalo Bill also took his show to Keighley and Leeds.

Now, in modified form it's back. Buffalo Bill's Wild West runs from May 29 to September 5.

Jim Greenhalf

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