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[Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) Sun, Jun 27, 1976, p17
https://www.newspapers.com/image/186602787/
See comment at the bottom for why this is included here.]
By Mildred Holcomb
When I tell my grandchildren that I have seen Buffalo Bill, they look at each other understandingly and become very kind. They are familiar with the vagaries of old age. They are willing to listen, but they know very well that no grandparent of theirs has ever sat, plumb tuckered, beside an evening campfire and heard Buffalo Bill Cody tell of his life on the Great Plains. I do not mention that I have also seen Annie Oakley.
* * *
This is the way it came about. One warm summer day in the early 1900s, every Model T Ford in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa was heading in clouds of dust for the county seat where Buffalo Bill Cody was appearing with his Wild West Show. From their fertile fields and blue houses, the Polish came across the border from Minnesota.
From the northwest came the Irish--all elbows and smiles and teeth and straw hats askew--rollicking along in a lilt of Katies and Killarneys. From the west, in a whiff of smoke from good cigars, their sides bulging with good living--the Germans polkaed by. From the east roads, the Yankees came riding sedately down their orderly lanes, their spare forms giving them room in their always-clean cars.
We Swedes came down through the center and, however ludicrously crowded into our cars, we still managed to ride with dignity, lifting a hand in greeting only to those we knew well.
The cars carrying the different nationalities turned into an area near the big tent where there was still room to park. Most of us were strangers to each other, so, without speaking, we hurried into the tent. Soon all the seats were gone, and then people packed the aisles. Calls for Buffalo Bill began and continued even through the circus which preceded the Wild West Show.
After the circus, ushers collected 25 cents apiece from the crowd to see Buffalo Bill and his show. Here is what we got for our money:
First, Annie Oakley gave an exhibition of sharpshooting. She was first because, it was thought, this would accustom the women to the sound of gunfire, of which there would be much to come. Applause was genuine but brief, and she skipped, smiling and throwing kisses, back to her tent --and to the needlepoint embroidery for which she was also famous.
Then the main show began with a burst of gunfire. Trick riders poured into the tent, showing us every way there was to ride a horse. Then rope tricks and steer throwing and bucking, kicking broncos. A buffalo hunt with two buffaloes running madly with hunters in pursuit. We saw the attack on the Deadwood stagecoach and rescue by the cavalry--with the Indians falling off their horses and rolling to the edge of the ring.
When the action was elsewhere, the Indians ran out an exit to a tent where we later learned they played Ping-Pong until it was time to get on their horses again. We saw the pageantry of the West--the stoic, awesome majesty of the parade of the Indian chiefs in full tribal regalia. And we saw Buffalo Bill.
The arena had been cleared, and there was a pause. Then Buffalo Bill rode into the tent. When pandemonium began, he stopped, waited a while and then rode forward slowly on his white horse, an Indian blanket folded under his magnificent saddle.
He was not wearing his buffalo- hunter, trail-scout clothes. In his show he was high style. He wore white whipcord trousers, black boots that reached mid-way up his thighs, a gold-decorated army officer's blue coat. When he turned his beautiful horse toward the crowd that was shouting waving, cheering, he lifted his big, white Western hat in salute, and his sandy gold curls hung down on his shoulders.
Twice he circled the ring, turning his horse to the crowd every five or six steps. He came back again at the show's close to the same hero's greeting. When he rode out the last time, there was silence, and a breath that was half a sob went over the crowd. People knew that Buffalo Bill was going home to his longed-for rest, "to my green hills, my buffalo, my sturdy, staunch Indian friends." This was his farewell.
On the way to our cars we talked about Buffalo Bill--how great he was, how glad we were that we had come to see him. The men shook hands all around, and we waved to each other as we started on the long ride home.
We had come as ethnic groups. We went home Americans.
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Mildred Holcomb, whose Swedish immigrant parents came to a rural Iowa community just south of Minnesota nearly 100 years ago, is an occasional contributor to this page. Mrs. Holcomb is a resident of St. Peter, Minn.
[Sylvia wrote: Dad (i.e., Jesse Hibbard) saw this same show. He told me about it many times. I sent him a copy like this several years ago.]
Published 2025-09-17.
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