71. For the Carey Act, and how it operated in Cody, see Bonner, “Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyoming Water Politics,” 433–51; also Donald Worster, River of Empire, 157; Donald J. Pisani, Water and American Government, xiv, 66–67; Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 209–10.
72. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 131–32; Jerry Bales, personal communication to the author, July 22, 2005.
73. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 142.
74. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 157. The average laborer earned $438 per year in 1900. Derks, Value of a Dollar, 63.
75. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 134; Jeannie Cook, Lynn Johnson Houze, Bob Edgar, and Paul Fees, Buffalo Bill’s Town in the Rockies: A Pictorial History of Cody, Wyoming (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning, 1996), 49.
76. Nate Salsbury, “The Pan-American Exposition,” typescript, n.d., in NSP, YCAL MSS 17, Box 2/63.
77. D. H. Elliott to WFC, June 26, 1897; D. H. Elliott to WFC, July 8, 1897, G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Box 25, Book 12, Beck Css, AHC.
78. Howard Martin to G. T. Beck, June 27, 1904; C. M. Stewart to Beck, July 5, 1904, Folder 2; A. C. Fowler to Beck, Oct. 14, 1904, Folder 7; C. L. Goodwin to Beck, Dec. 3, 1904, Folder 7, 41 in Beck Family Papers, Box 2, AHC.
79. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909, in Gen’l Administrative and Project Records (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, NARA-RMR.
80. Bonner, “Buffalo Bill and Wyoming Water Politics,” 439, n. 15; Edward Gillette, Locating the Iron Trail (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1925), 117–24; Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 124.
81. WFC to G. T. Beck, Sept. 25, [1898?], G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Doc. 6, Folder 12, AHC.
82. They handed the land over to the railroad’s town-building subsidiary, the Lincoln Land Company. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 185.
83. Bonner, “Buffalo Bill and Wyoming Water Politics,” 439; Cook et al., Buffalo Bill’s Town in the Rockies, 51.
84. “Boom Town of the West Which Was Built Up in a Single Year,” Boston Herald, Jan. 4, 1903, in Beck Family Papers, No. 10386, Box 15/20, AHC.
85. Bonner, “Buffalo Bill and Wyoming Water Politics,” 435.
86. For a sample of the vigorous social scene in early Cody, see Agnes Chamberlin Scrapbook, Park County Historical Society, Cody, WY.
87. “ ‘The Irma,’ ” unattributed clipping, Nov. 22, 1902, Agnes Chamberlin Scrapbook, Park County Historical Society, Cody, WY.
88. “A Window to the Past: Nana Haight’s Letters from Cody, 1910–1914,” typescript, n.d., 1–5, Local History Collection, BBHC.
89. Price, “Study of Early Cody, Wyoming,” 153–56.
90. WFC to Beck, Oct. 21, 1895, in G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Doc. 5, Folder 12, AHC.
91. For complaints, see WFC to Beck, June 8, 1898; “This is discouraging …” from WFC to Beck, Aug. 7, 1897, “It was neglect …” from WFC to Beck, Aug. 21, 1898, G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Doc. 6, Folder 12, AHC.
92. WFC to Beck, Aug. 19, 1896, in G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Doc. 6, Folder 12, AHC.
93. WFC to Beck, n.d., in G. T. Beck Papers, No. 59, Doc. 6, Folder 12, AHC.
94. WFC to JCG, April 12, 1903, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/19, BBHC.
95. WFC to JCG, July 19, 1903, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/19, BBHC.
96. The minimum cost for building the main canal from the river was more than $300,000; for getting that water to distributing ditches across the proposed settlement, another $245,000; for the waterworks to the town of Cody, which would provide water for up to 10,000 people, a minimum of $32,000; for the power plant to generate the town’s electricity, a minimum expenditure of $165,000 was required. Frank C. Kelsey to WFC and Salsbury, Sept. 20, 1901, Engineering and Research Center Project Reports, Box 782 (Old Box), 520 SHO 10-52–530-SHO-22, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, RG 115, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, NARA-RMR.
97. D. F. Richards to A. O. Woodruff, May 19, 1902, in Papers of D. F. Richards, Wyoming State Archives, Cheyenne; D. R. Richards to WFC, June 21, 1902; Papers of Acting Governor Fenimore Chatterton, General Css.-Incoming, Box 2, WSA.
98. Worster, Rivers of Empire, 157; Pisani, Water and American Government, xiv–xv, 90.
99. Governor DeForest Richards offered the Cody-Salsbury tract to the Reclamation Service in a letter of Jan. 26, 1903, telling federal officials that the state board of land commissioners “will be glad to relinquish this land to the United States.” See U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Second Annual Report of the ReclamationService (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 507, see also 508–9. The government estimated that it could reclaim 125,000 acres of land and irrigate it for farming at a cost to farmers of $25 per acre. “… opposite the railroad station at Ralston, is the 24,000 acres of first-class land segregated by the State under the Carey Act, which may be relinquished to the Secretary of the Interior.” U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Third Annual Report of the Reclamation Service (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1905), 617–18, quote from 618; also U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Fourth Annual Report of the Reclamation Service, 1904–5 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906), 346–50.
100. Fenimore Chatterton to Charles D. Walcott, Jan. 4, 1904; and see also the indenture of Dec. 12, 1902, between Cody and Salsbury and the State of Wyoming, both in General Administrative and Project Records (Shoshone), 1902–1919, Entry 3, Box 912, Folder 958, in RG 115, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, NARA-RMR.
101. “Cody Has the $3,500,000,” New York Times, Dec. 23, 1903, p. 2; quote from WFC to James Garfield, Jan. 24, 1909, in General Administrative and Project Records (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, NARA-RMR.
102. For settler discontent with the absence of a town waterworks, see “Why Not an Artesian Well?” Wyoming Stockgrower and Farmer, Dec. 15, 1903; also see “Large Irrigation Works,” Wyoming Stockgrower and Farmer, Dec. 15, 1903; the town raised their own money to pay for a new waterworks by selling bonds. See “Accepted the Bid,” Wyoming Stockgrower and Farmer, Dec. 29, 1903.
103. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 24, 1909.
104. Republican Club of Northern Big Horn County to Chatterton, n.d., in Papers of Acting Governor Fenimore Chatterton, General Css.-Incoming, Box 2, WSA.
105. WFC to James R. Garfield, Jan. 29, 1909, in General Administrative and Project Records (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, NARA-RMR.
106. C. H. Morrill to C. A. Guernsey, July 1, 1908, in General Administrative and Project Records (Shoshone), Entry 3, Box 899, Folder 448-A1 (1909), RG 115, Records of the Bureau of Reclamation, NARA-RMR.
107. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904.
108. Cody signed relinquishment, WFC to Fenimore Chatterton, Feb. 15, 1904, but then he recalled and annulled it before finally relinquishing it again; in Papers of Acting Governor Fenimore Chatterton, General Css.-Incoming, Box 2, WSA.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SHOWDOWN IN CHEYENNE
1. Nate Salsbury, “Contract with Bailey,” typescript, n.d., in YCAL MSS 17, NSP. For Bailey: see Davis, The Circus Age, 54–56.
2. Nate Salsbury, “Long Hair and a Plug Hat,” typescript, n.d., NSP. “Many people may imagine I am inspired by a spirit of malice in writing these things. Not at all. I am only giving those who are dear to me a club to pound him with if he ever attempts to blacken me in support of his overwheening vanity.”
3. Nate Salsbury, “Secret Service,” typescript, n.d., in YCAL MSS 17, NSP.
4. “Tin Jesus on horseback” from Nate Salsbury; “Long Hair and a Plug Hat,” typescript, n.d.; “abused every man” from Nate Salsbury, “Cody’s Personal Representatives,” typescript, n.d., both in NSP.
5. Nate Salsbury, “Long Hair and a Plug Hat,” typescript, n.d., NSP.
6.
Nate Salsbury, “Cody’s Personal Representatives,” typescript, n.d., NSP.
7. Nate Salsbury, “American Exhibition,” typescript, n.d., NSP.
8. Nate Salsbury, “Cody, Manager,” typescript, n.d., NSP.
9. Nate Salsbury, “At the Vatican,” typescript, n.d., NSP. Nate Salsbury, “Long Hair and a Plug Hat,” typescript, n.d., NSP.
10. Home illustrated in BBWW 1885 program (Hartford, CT: Calhoun Printing, 1885), n.p.; quote from 1885 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show Courier, in WH 72, Box 2/19, DPL.
11. BBWW 1893 program, 19; for masculine domesticity, see Marsh, Suburban Lives, 67–74.
12. Mrs. John Boyer testimony, Folder 7-1, 73, CC.
13. Russell, Lives and Legends, 432–33.
14. Russell, Lives and Legends, 425.
15. WFC to Henry Parker, June 9, 1901, Henry Parker Collection, Accession No. 388, Box 1, AHC.
16. WFC to Mrs. W. F. Cody, Aug. 21, 1900, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/15, BBHC.
17. For confrontations between ranch foremen/managers and Louisa Cody, see Henry Parker testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 170–8; John Boyer testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 179–89.
18. The divorce petition is reprised in “Wife to Fight ‘Buffalo Bill,’ ” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 15, 1905, p. 2.
19. “Buffalo Bill at Last Stand,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 17, 1905, p. 1.
20. Bram Dijkstra, Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality and the Cult of Manhood (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996); Smith-Rosenberg, Disorderly Conduct, 181.
21. “The Sad Death of Horton S. Boal,” Cody Enterprise, Nov. 6, 1902, clipping in Agnes Chamberlin Scrapbook, Park County Historical Society, Cody, WY; Yost, Buffalo Bill, 320.
22. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 89–90.
23. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 92.
24. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 94.
25. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 97; quote from D. Franklin Powell testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 228. Louisa refused to speak to William Cody or sit with him in the carriage that transferred the coffin from one depot to another in Chicago. Robert Haslam testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 137–38.
26. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 100, 105; reconciliation attempt is in D. Franklin Powell testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 228.
27. “Buffalo Bill at Last Stand,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 17, 1905, p. 1.
28. “Buffalo Bill Reads of Love,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 19, 1905, p. 5.
29. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, Folder 2, p. 14.
30. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, Folder 2, pp. 18, 56, 57.
31. Mrs. C. P. Davis testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 79–80.
32. Florence Parker testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 153–60; another witness testified to the “horse-whipping” Irma received. See Mrs. C. P. Davis testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 83.
33. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 6–9.
34. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 10–12, 24, 32, 34, 64–66, 69–72. Louisa Cody demanded that Mr. Boyer put his wife off the ranch or leave. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 33.
35. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 26, 41.
36. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 29, 30, 50–54.
37. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 48, 57.
38. May Cody Bradford testimony, CC, Folder 7-1, 114–15; also WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 40.
39. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 41.
40. Beach Hinman testimony, CC, Feb. 9, 1905, Folder 8, 4.
41. Edith Colvin testimony, CC, Feb. 16–20, 1905, Folder 7-2, 356–60.
42. John Sorenson testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 354–55.
43. Frank Bullard testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 347–48, Folder 8, 83–84.
44. E. B. Warner testimony, CC, Folder 8, 12–20, esp. 13.
45. W. H. Turpie testimony, CC, Folder 8, 48.
46. Mrs. Florence M. Hershey, testimony, CC, Folder 8, 74–80.
47. For Carry Nation, see Homer E. Socolofsky, “Carry Amelia Nation,” in Lamar, The New Encyclopedia of the American West, 760. For alcohol and temperance, see W. J. Rorabaugh, The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979); Ian R. Tyrell, Sobering Up: From Temperance to Prohibition in Ante-Bellum America, 1800–1860 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979).
48. WFC to Mike Russell, Jan. 22, 1901; WFC to Mike Russell, March 14, 1901, MS 6 Series I:B Css, Box 1/17, BBHC.
49. Charles Wayland Towne, “Preacher’s Son on the Loose with Buffalo Bill Cody,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 18, no. 4 (Fall 1968): 49.
50. Frank R. Bullard testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 348.
51. Frank R. Bullard testimony, CC, Feb. 10, 1905, Folder 8, 90.
52. A. F. Streitz testimony, CC, Feb. 10, 1905, Folder 8, 106.
53. C. M. Newton testimony, CC, Folder 8, 44.
54. Patrick McEvoy testimony, CC, Feb. 11, 1905, Folder 8, 122.
55. Loren Sturgis testimony, CC, Feb. 10, 1905, Folder 8, 97–103.
56. Mrs. Louisa Burke testimony, CC, Feb. 10, 1905, Folder 8, 110–12, 120.
57. Ira L. Bare testimony, CC, Feb. 10, 1905, Folder 8, 65.
58. Charles Iddings testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 329, 334–35. Emphasis added.
59. Beach Hinman testimony, CC, Feb. 9, 1905, Folder 8, 4–5. My analysis of Louise Cody as a “plain body” relies on Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women.
60. Beach Hinman testimony, CC, Feb. 9, 1905, Folder 8, 8.
61. Beach Hinman testimony, CC, Feb. 9, 1905, Folder 8, 5.
62. The letter is not in the other defendant’s exhibit, but Judge Scott quoted from it in his decision. See CC, Opinion of the Court, Folders 14 and 15, 2.
63. Louisa Cody’s deposition does not survive in the case file at the Wyoming State Archives, so I have resorted to newspaper accounts of her testimony. “Loves Cody, Swears It,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 1, 1905, 2.
64. “Buffalo Bill Reads of Love,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 19, 1905, 5; also, WFC testimony, Feb. 19, 1905, Folder 7-2, 272–86.
65. Charles Idding testimony, CC, Folder 7-2, 329.
66. WFC to Louisa Cody, Oct. 5, [1900], CC, Def. Ex. 2, Folder 7-2. The letter has no year, but it written from Joplin, Missouri. The Wild West show was in Joplin on Oct. 5, 1900; see “BBWW Routes, 1883–1916,” BBHC.
67. WFC to Louisa Cody, May 1, 1900, CC, Def. Ex. 3, Folder 7-2.
68. WFC to Louisa Cody, May 20, 1900, CC, Def. Ex. 4, and WFC to Louisa Cody, May 28, 1900, Def. Ex. 5, Folder 7-2.
69. WFC to Louisa Cody, May 20, 1900, CC, Folder 7-2; also WFC to Louisa Cody, May 29, 1900, Folder 7-2.
70. WFC to Louisa Cody, May 22, [1901], CC, Folder 7-2. No year on letter, but it was written from Richmond, Indiana, where the Wild West show performed on May 22, 1900. See “BBWW Routes List, 1883–1916,” BBHC.
71. WFC to Louisa Cody, June 28, 1901, CC, Folder 7-2.
72. Mary M. Harrington testimony, CC, Feb. 21, 1905, Folder 10, pp. 10, 12.
73. “Fred May’s Last Mistake,” unattributed clipping, n.d., “Frederick May Dies After Life of Much Turmoil,” unattributed clipping, 1918, “Mrs. Gould Wins Decree,” unattributed clipping, 1909, in Robert Haslam Scrapbook, CHS; “Why Katherine and Cody Parted,” New York Herald, April 17, 1894; “Fred May Meets Col. Cody,” New York Sun, Feb. 17, 1894; “Is it Puff or Pouff?” New York World, Feb. 19, 1894; “Where Is Col. ‘Buffalo Bill’?,” New York World, Feb. 19, 1894; for losses of Clemmons’s plays, see “Losses of the Year,” Dramatic Times, April 21, 1894, all in NSS, 1894.
74. Her age is in WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 51.
75. Fellows and Freeman, This Way to the Big Show, 150.
76. John W. Clair testimony, CC, April 1904, Folder 11, 9, 17.
77. Louis “Ed” Clark testimony, CC, Nov. 5, 1904, Folder 12.
78. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 12–13; William McCune supported Cody’s testimony on this point. See Wi
lliam McCune testimony, Folder 7-1, 152.
79. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 7.
80. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 12.
81. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, 11.
82. “Cody’s Heart Won by Press Agent?,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 20, 1905, 3.
83. “Buffalo Bill at Last Stand,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 20, 1905, 3.
84. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, 15.
85. See the judge’s ruling, which he made the following day, also Lester Walker testimony, Folder 7-2, 263; and “Buffalo Bill’s Suit for Divorce Recalled by Henning,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Jan. 8, 1954, 7.
86. CC, Opinion of the Court, Folders 14 and 15, 2.
87. Henry Blake testimony, CC, Jan. 30, 1905, Folder 9, 17.
88. “Mrs. Cody the Josephine in a Suit for Divorce,” Chicago Inter-Ocean, March 20, 1904, pp. 6–7, clipping in Beck Family Papers, No. 10386, Box 15, Folder 18, AHC.
89. The message was sent in a letter from Frank Powell, who met with the judge after the trial. See D. Franklin Powell to WFC, March 28, 1905, Hon. Richard H. Scott Collection, No. 2627, Box 1, AHC.
90. WFC to D. Franklin Powell, April 12, 1905, Hon. Richard H. Scott Collection, No. 2627, Box 1, AHC.
91. William Whelan testimony, CC, March 4, 1905, Folder 6.
92. Mrs. J. Boyer testimony, CC, 41.
93. WFC testimony, March 6, 1905, Folder 13, 27.
94. William Whelan testimony, CC, March 4, 1905, Folder 6, 4.
95. WFC to JCG, April 22, 1876, MS 6 I:B Correspondence, Box 1/5, BBHC.
96. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, Folder 2, 30.
97. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, Folder 2, 16.
98. WFC testimony, March 23, 1904, Folder 2, 70.
99. Yost, Buffalo Bill, 337. Hints of discontent caused by the trial appear in comments about Cody, in “Mike Taguin [?]” to “Old Pard,” April 7, 1904, MS 126, William Cody Collection, Box 1, Folder 1, CHS: “I tell you the North Platte people and the Denverites are all down on him also the Masons and the Millitaries [sic]. The North Platte People says for him to keep away from there for it can’t be healthy for him to go there.”
100. “Pulpit Praises the Court,” unattributed clipping, 1905, Hon. Richard H. Scott Collection, No. 2627, Box 1, Correspondence, AHC.
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