Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1884. Buffalo Bill Cody and his troupe spotted on Wild Westminster

A celebrity spotted on Providence's Westminster Street during the summer of 1884 made the paper on Aug. 7 under the headline: The "Wild West."

"The train that arrived from Woonsocket about 7 o'clock last evening brought Buffalo Bill and his 'Wild West' company," began the story. "The conspicuous . . . hat was not necessary to attract the attention of passers-by on Westminster street to a tall, broad-shouldered man who was making his way to the Narragansett Hotel, and the familiar face of Buffalo Bill was readily recognized."

In a short interview with The Journal in his hotel room, Buffalo Bill Cody, head of the famous "Wild West" traveling show, boasted that more than 6,000 people had attended his show the day before in Woonsocket.

Cody also told of English noblemen who wanted to see his exhibition, and of the famous people who had ridden in his Deadwood coach. "Everybody rides in that coach," he told The Journal. "I've had noblemen and lords and mayors of cities and a lot of big personages in that coach."

Buffalo Bill Cody

Some Englishmen wanted to hire Cody as their personal travel guide to the American West, Cody said, but he was too busy with his show. "And besides," he said, "I've got an exhibition here that will show them more of the wild West in two hours than they could see if they traveled the plains five years."