MUSEUM CELEBRATES BUFFALO BILL’S 171ST
golden» Geneva Calderon has been going to the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave for the frontier showman’s annual birthday celebration since 1999, she said Sunday, the 171st anniversary of William F. Cody’s birth.
Longhorn cattle and buffalo were on hand for the party years ago, she said.
The animals are no longer part of the anniversary celebration, but there were more than enough re-enactors dressed as the Western hero to satisfy Calderon.
“I like all the Bills,” she said. “They’re very entertaining guys. They’ve got a lot of history in them.”
Among the re-enactors prowling the property and answering visitors’ questions were R.D. Melfi and his wife, Barb Melfi, the state’s official Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley. “Usually we do perform up here and tell true stories of Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley,” R.D. said. “Today we’re just here to meet and greet people and pose for pictures.”
Nearby, Stanley Beug was dressed in a fringed buckskin jacket and was carrying a replica of a Winchester Model 1873 rifle, similar to those used in Cody’s Wild West show. “I started coming up here in the mid-’90s,” he said.
His wife embroidered the floral decorations on the linen shirt he wore, which is similar to those worn by Cody, he said.
William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody was born Feb. 26, 1846, and died in 1917. Born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory, he became a rider for the Pony Express at 14, served in the Union Army during the Civil War, then worked as a civilian scout during the Indian Wars.
He founded Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1883, taking a troupe of as many as 700 people on tours in the U.S. and Europe that featured reenactments of stagecoach robberies and Indian attacks, along with sharpshooting and other exhibitions.
Sunday’s celebration, which featured free cake and ice cream, kicked off the opening of the museum’s newest exhibit, which highlights the debate over Buffalo Bill’s final resting place.
Cody died Jan. 10, 1917, in Denver and was buried six months later on Lookout Mountain.
The title of the exhibit, “A Better Place Could Hardly Have Been Chosen,” were words spoken by Buffalo Bill’s niece after a visit to Lookout Mountain in 1920. Cody’s family insisted that on his deathbed, he had asked to be buried on the mountain, according to the website Colorado Encyclopedia.
Residents of Cody, Wyo., which he helped to found, wanted him buried there. When Cody residents offered $10,000 for his body, a deeper shaft was blasted at the Lookout Mountain grave site, and concrete was piled on top to ensure he stayed there.
Ron Jagersky, 70, of Arvada, said he used to bring his children to the grave. “They’re all grown adults and don’t want to do that. But I’m enjoying it,” he said.