Sculpture Guide: Bill Cody—Hard and Fast All the Way

Bill Cody—Hard and Fast All the Way

By Peter Fillerup
2010

Location: Southeast of the building, next to the street

Located along 8th Street in front of the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Bill Cody—Hard and Fast All the Way by Peter Fillerup depicts William F. Cody as a Pony Express Rider. Completed in 2010, the sculpture commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Pony Express, and sculpture Fillerup called it at the sculpture’s dedication “a tribute to Buffalo Bill’s contributions to the Pony Express.”

While many historians question whether Cody rode for the overland mail service at all, he always honored the riders of the Pony Express as part of his Wild West show, and, notes Fillerup, “no one did more to keep the memory of the Pony Express alive than Buffalo Bill.”

Peter Fillerup (1953 – 2016). Bill Cody—Hard and Fast All the Way, 2010. Bronze, 144 x 192 inches (16 x 12 feet). Gift of Bill and Joanne Shiebler. 14.11