Treasures from Our West: Poster of Chief Iron Tail

Originally published in Points West magazine in Fall 2007

Poster of Chief Iron Tail

This poster is one of the most colorful and impressive posters in the Buffalo Bill Museum’s collection. Its full title is “Iron Tail / Last of the Great Chiefs / Now With Buffalo Bill / Pawnee Bill Shows.” Copyrighted in 1912 by the U.S. Lithograph Co., the poster was printed in four colors by the Russell-Morgan Print Co. of Cincinnati and New York.

The dimensions of this “one sheet” poster are 39 5/8 x 27 3/8 inches. Posters came in variations of this basic size, ranging from half-sheets (21 x 28 inches) up to 168 sheets (9 x 143 feet)—although few of this size were made. Odd-shaped ones were made for special settings. A poster forty-one sheets long but only one sheet high was made for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West season at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, where it was wrapped around the corner of a building and extended along both sides.

By the late 1890s, Iron Tail was the principal Indian in Buffalo Bills Wild West. He became a close friend of William F. Cody’s even though neither spoke much of the other’s language. For the most part, they communicated through sign language; film footage of them having a “conversation” currently shows in the Buffalo Bill Museum’s Wild West alcove near this poster.

Find out more about the art and science of printing multi-sheet posters, see this Points West article.

U.S. Lithograph Co., Russell-Morgan Print, Cincinnati, 1912. Four color lithograph, 39.625 x 37.375 inches. Original Buffalo Bill Museum Collection. 1.69.50

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