In May 1886, the newspapers were full of advertisements that talked about how west would meet west when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show performed in Western Maryland.
It was the first appearance of a show that was part circus, part Vaudeville and part dime novel, and it had captured the imagination of Americans.
In 1883, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, a former soldier and buffalo hunter, founded Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, a circus-type event depicting life and adventure in the American West. Dime novels (one of which would eventually feature Buffalo Bill) were the forerunners of Westerns. They had captured the imagination of Americans. However, these were the days before movies and television, so few people had seen or experienced the West.
People believed that changed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Humorist Brick Pomeroy said, “Buffalo Bill has brought the Wild West to the doors of the East. There is more of real life, of genuine interest, of positive education in this startling exhibition than I have ever before seen, as it is so true to nature and life as it really is with those who are smoothing the way for millions to follow.”
The show began touring American cities in the east, where it became a hit, and on May 26, 1886, the show came to Cumberland.
The Wild West Show set up in Base Ball Park in Cumberland with additional seating that brought the number of visitors who could watch the single performance up to 3,000.
Those guests were not only coming from Cumberland, but special B&O Railroad and Pennsylvania Railroad excursion trains brought in people from the surrounding communities.
The performance in Cumberland ran into a couple of minor snafus. First, it was announced a few days prior that Cody had broken his leg while engaged in mock combat in another performance. He was expected to perform what he could within the limits of his broken leg.
The other snafu was that the train carrying the show arrived an hour late. This set all the schedules back an hour. The parade through Cumberland, which was expected to start at 10 a.m. didn’t start until 11 a.m.
The gates to the park opened, and mounted cowboys and Indians, walking performers, wagons, stagecoaches and more followed the band into Cumberland. The parade route followed Park Street, Columbia Street, Bedford Road, Decatur Street, Baltimore Street, Mechanic Street, Mill Street, Centre Street, Payne Street, Park Street and back to Base Ball Park. It took 15 minutes to pass any given point.
“It was undoubtedly the finest parade of the kind ever held in this city, and attracted large crowds along the streets through which it passed, reminding one of an old time circus day,” The (Cumberland) Daily Times reported.
Upon the return of the show to the park, the gates opened at 2 p.m. and customers streamed inside.
The show was a series of vignettes interspersed with trick riding, sharpshooting and lariat displays. The vignettes portrayed stagecoach robberies, Indian attacks, delivering mail along the Pony Express and Custer’s Last Stand (with Buffalo Bill portraying General Custer).
It was pure action and excitement.
Besides Cody, the performance featured 45 Indian chiefs of the Pawnee, Sioux, Apache, Arapaho, Fox, Ogalla and Cheyenne; cowboys Jim Kidd, Big Johnson, Buck Taylor and Bronco Bill. Other performers included sharpshooters Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler, and sharpshooter Johnny Baker, who was said to be able to shoot in 40 different styles.
In later years, cast members included Calamity Jane and Sitting Bull.
One advertisement described the show as “The Acme of Intelligent Efforts To Combine Merit, Instruction, Pleasure and Education in an Epitome of our Nation’s Progressive History, depicted by more Scouts with Records; more Skillful Marksmen and Markswomen; more Genuine Indians; more Western Animals; more Celebrated Characters; more Tip-Top Cowboys; more Wild Bucking Horses; more general features of Western life than ever before at one time and place visible on the face of the globe …”
This show had been billed as “Positively the First and Last Appearance of America’s National Entertainment.”
That was apparently just hype because Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show returned to Cumberland at least three more times in 1896, 1907 and 1916. The last one was not a performance of the original show, which closed in 1913, but a new iteration under new management.
Contact Jim Rada at jimrada@yahoo.com or 410-698-3571.