American frontiersman and entertainer (1846-1917). By the age of fifteen Cody had already been a horse wrangler, Pony Express rider, and unsuccessful prospector. He became a scout for the Union army and after the war took a job for a company that supplied meat for railroad construction crews, killing 4,280 buffalo during 1867-68. Dubbed “Buffalo Bill” by writer Ned Buntline, Cody organized his famous Wild West Show in 1883 and met with great success during national and worldwide tours in the following decades. ALS signed “W. F. Cody,” two pages, 8.5 x 11, pictorial Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World letterhead, March 19, 1896. The letterhead, which features multiple portraits of Cody and his personnel and an overhead view of the show, “The Largest Arenic Exhibition Known in History,” lists as tour director “Jas. A Bailey” [the noted promoter who joined with P. T. Barnum in 1881 to form Barnum and Bailey's Circus]. Cody writes to a potential land investor, Mr. Stokes, regarding the completion of Cody, Wyoming. In part: “And it's now we need the money to finish the ditch for the first 25,000 acre tract. I feel confident we can sell the most of it this first year if we can finish the ditch for spring work. So the land can be watered this spring. Otherwise we will loose a whole year. I can locate and sell ten thousand acres to two German colonies at once for $10.00 per acre…. So you can se the importance of getting the first 25,000 acres ready. Then the money we get from first payments on land will build the ditch to the Placerfields. Then we have two strings to out bow. We have also located a coal mine, a five or six foot vein within three miles of our First Town site besides several quartz mines and other valuable ores. Mr. Stokes, if we finish the ditch in time for spring work, you will never regret this enterprize [sic]. If you do, I will guarantee to give your money back to you with interest inside of two years. Yes I want Mr. Foote to see the situation and I will be on in a few days. And arrange with him how to go. But we want the money now to go on with the work.” Cody first entered the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming in the 1870s while Professor O. C. March, distinguished geologist of Yale University, was making a study of the natural resources of the West. The tremendous possibilities for development of land through irrigation, the rich soil, the grandeur of the scenery, the abundance of fish and game, and the proximity of Yellowstone National Park, all influenced Colonel Cody to return in the mid-1890s. Cody and several friends came to the area with the avowed purpose of land development and the building of a community. The original tract selected was located at the east end of the Shoshone Canyon, but was later changed to the present site. At the insistence of Cody's fellow developers, the town was named after him in 1895. Professional repairs to partial and complete horizontal fold separations and tears, intersecting mailing folds, and a bit of scattered paper loss at edges, otherwise very good condition. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
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