Originally featured in Points West magazine in Summer 2017
Photograph: William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody in Wild West arena against backdrop
In the arena with the Wild West background in the rear, it’s as if Buffalo Bill is leaving the Old West behind and looking to the future—but not without first acknowledging “the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles, and its tremendous stretches of loneliness can never be blotted from my mind.”
Today, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West embraces the West as much as our namesake did. As we enter our next century, we’re committed to his legacy and his love for the American West. As he put it, “It was because of my great interest in the West, and my belief that its development would be assisted by the interest I could awaken in others, that I decided to bring the West to the world.” And that’s the Center’s goal for another hundred years.
William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, ca. 1913. MS 6 William F. Cody Collection. P.69.740
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