THESE ARE THE FACES OF THE WILD WEST; A GALLERY OF REAL-LIFE LEGENDS, MEN AND WOMEN WHO EMBODIED THE DREAMS AND VALUES OF THEIR TIME. THEY WERE SHAPED BY THE FRONTIER: AN AWESOME, OPEN SPACE, FULL OF DANGER, CHANCE AND CHALLENGE. THE SHEER ENDLESSNESS OF THE LAND JUST SEEMED TO BREED EXAGGERATION. FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, THE FRONTIER GAVE BIRTH TO LARGER-THAN-LIFE HEROES; CHARACTERS, PLACES AND EVENTS THAT MAKE UP THE MYTH OF THE WEST, WHERE FACT AND FICTION GO HAND-IN-HAND, AND TRUTH IS JUST A STARTING POINT.
CONSIDER THE STORY OF ONE ELEVEN YEAR OLD BOY ON THE KANSAS FRONTIER AND THE FATEFUL NIGHT HIS LEGEND BEGAN.
CODY:
I could hardly realize what I had done, and was badly scared...but from that time forward I became a hero and an Indian killer.
-William F. Cody
BRIAN DIPPIE:
He said, unashamedly, that he was famous because he killed Indians and killed buffalo. Seems impossible to imagine that would be the basis of fame but, of course, the fame that's represented there is the story of pioneering. For that generation, that was an heroic tale and Buffalo Bill its most prominent figure.
NARRATOR:
BILLY CODY'S LEGEND SEEMED TO GROW UP RIGHT ALONGSIDE HIM: AT FOURTEEN HE RODE FOR THE PONY EXPRESS; AFTER THAT HE SERVED AS A SOLDIER FOR THE UNION ARMY; A STAGE DRIVER ON THE OVERLAND LINE; ACE BUFFALO HUNTER FOR THE RAILROAD; THEN A CHIEF SCOUT IN THE INDIAN WARS, ALL BEFORE HE WAS TWENTY-FIVE. WILLIAM FREDERICK CODY, BETTER KNOWN AS BUFFALO BILL, WENT ON TO BECOME THE WEST'S ULTIMATE MYTHMAKER.
TOWNS BECAME LEGENDS TOO, DODGE, TOMBSTONE, ABILENE, DEADWOOD. WILD, UNTAMED PLACES WHERE LAW WAS A GUN, A ROPE, AND A MAN, LIKE JAMES BUTLER HICKOK.
JOE McCOY:
A hundred pistols were drawn and cocked as Wild Bill fired his first shot. By the time he fired the second time the room was cleared...Wild Bill's friends liked to remember him the way they saw him that night. Alone, he cleared the town.
-Joe McCoy, Mayor of Abilene
NARRATOR:
THE TRUTH IS, WILD BILL ONLY HAD ONE SHOOT-OUT AT HIGH NOON AND LOTS MORE PEOPLE DIED IN HIS STORYTELLING THAN HIS GUNFIGHTING.
CHARLIE RUSSELL:
Speakin' of liars, a man in the states might have been a liar in a small way, but when he comes west he soon takes lesson from the prairies, where ranges a hundred miles away seem within touchin' distance; streams run uphill ... and nature appears to lie some herself.
-Charlie Russell
NARRATOR:
AS A MATTER OF FACT, NOBODY WAS EVER HANGED IN DODGE AND IN THE WHOLE WILD WEST, THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF DEATHS-BY-VIOLENCE, PER YEAR, WAS ONLY 1.2.
THE FAMOUS SHOOT-OUT AT THE O.K. CORRAL HAS MORE THAN ONE TELLING. THE OFFICIAL VERSION CASTS THE EARPS AS THE GOOD GUYS BUT WITNESSES SAY THE EARPS FIRED FIRST, ON UNARMED MEN WHO HAD THEIR HANDS UP. WYATT EARP WALKED BOTH SIDES OF THE LAW, AS A POLICEMAN, PIMP AND SUSPECTED STAGE ROBBER BUT THE MYTHICAL WYATT STILL STANDS TALL.
WE SEEM TO HAVE A PECULIAR AFFECTION FOR GOOD BAD BOYS, LIKE JESSE JAMES. IN LEGEND, JESSE IS A GALLANT ROBIN HOOD, CARRYING ON THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE AGAINST THE HATED NORTHERN BANKS AND RAILROADS. IN THE WORDS OF FELLOW SOUTHERNER JAMES NEWMAN EDWARDS:
MAJOR EDWARDS:
What he did, he did, and it was fearful. When the war closed, Jesse had no home. Proscribed, hunted, shot, driven away from his people, a price put on his head -- what else could he do?
NARRATOR :
BUT THERE'S NO RECORD OF JESSE JAMES SHARING THE TAKE WITH ANY POOR WIDOWS.
ANOTHER OUTLAW HERO, YOUNG, WILY, CHARMING, AND A RUTHLESS KILLER, WAS BILLY THE KID. AFTER SHERIFF PAT GARRETT KILLED HIM IN 1881, GARRETT WROTE A BOOK TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT BUT HIS BOOK BACKFIRED: THE MYTH WAS JUST TOO POWERFUL FOR THE TRUTH.
PAUL HUTTON:
It was Billy who emerged as the hero of the piece. And Garrett emerged as the villain, tracking down his old friend, murdering him in a dark room, and it was the smiling face of Billy the Kid, the young outlaw, that rebel against authority who emerged as the great hero.
NARRATOR:
MOST OF OUR WESTERN HEROES ARE WHITE MEN. FOR A WOMAN TO MAKE IT INTO THE MYTH SHE HAD TO MEASURE UP TO THAT MANLY CHALLENGE AND NOBODY DID THAT BETTER THAN CALAMITY JANE.
CALAMITY JANE:
I joined General Custer as a scout in 1870. Heh, up to this time I'd always worn the costume of my sex. When I joined Custer, I donned the uniform of a soldier. It was a bit awkward at first. But, I soon got to be perfectly at home in men's clothes.
NARRATOR:
ACTUALLY, CALAMITY NEVER MET CUSTER. SHE WAS MORE OF A CAMP FOLLOWER THAN AN ARMY SCOUT AND SHE WAS SENT PACKING WHEN SHE WAS CAUGHT ROLLING IN THE HAY WITH THE SOLDIERS. CALAMITY EVEN CLAIMED TO BE MARRIED TO WILD BILL HICKOK BUT HE DENIED IT. SHE CARRIED A TORCH FOR HIM, HOWEVER, UNTIL THE DAY HE DIED.
AND THEN THERE WAS ANNIE OAKLEY, A TRUE TALENT, WHO COULD OUTSHOOT ANY MAN.
ANNIE OAKLEY:
I was eight years old when I made my first shot, a squirrel, and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made... I decided in a flash that I must hit that squirrel in the head or be disgraced.
-Annie Oakley
NARRATOR:
ANNIE NOT ONLY KEPT HER FAMILY FROM STARVING; AS A PROFESSIONAL GAME SHOOTER, SHE PAID OFF THEIR MORTGAGE BY THE TIME SHE WAS FOURTEEN.
THE BIGGEST MYTH OF ALL MAY HAVE BEEN THAT THE UNSETTLED FRONTIER WAS FREE FOR THE TAKING.
BRIAN DIPPIE:
I think the myth of the American West is essentially a White man's tribal myth and it's the story of the White man's conquest of supposedly a raw wilderness, a savage land.
RICK WILLIAMS:
I had a friend growing up, and whenever we would play cowboys and Indians he'd always tell me "You know, if you're playing the Indian, you always have to die and I always have to win," and so we still argue about that today.
NARRATOR:
COWBOYS AND INDIANS HARDLY EVER MET; SOLDIERS DID THE FIGHTING; BUT FOR SOME REASON, THE COWBOY BECAME THE NOBLEST OF WHITE KNIGHTS.
LONN TAYLOR:
The cowboy became an icon of the west because the cowboy really symbolizes the conflict between civilization and wilderness on the side of wilderness. The cowboy was perceived to have an independence that people that lived in the urban east simply did not have.
NARRATOR:
FORGET REALITY, THE COWBOY BECAME A ROMANTIC HERO, FIGHTING FOR RIGHT. A LONER, ALWAYS RIDING INTO THE SUNSET; NO SWEAT, DUST OR COWS TO MAR THE PICTURE.
BRIAN DIPPIE:
Much of what we think is true about the American West, in fact, never happened. It's our mythology that we, in fact, respond to, in fact, not to history.
NARRATOR:
PART OF THIS CONFUSION CAME ABOUT BECAUSE DURING THOSE WILD AND WOOLLY YEARS WHEN THE WEST WAS YOUNG, HISTORY WAS BEING WRITTEN IN DECEPTIVELY INNOCENT-LOOKING LITTLE BOOKS CALLED "DIME NOVELS". THEY MADE GREAT READING. TROUBLE WAS, PEOPLE BELIEVED THEM.
DIME NOVEL HERO:
"Touch but a hair of her head, and by the Lord that made me, I will bespatter that tree with your brains!"
DIME NOVEL TEXT:
Bang!
Bang!
Bang
"Three shots rang out in the midnight air!"
NARRATOR:
DIME NOVELS CREATED MYTHS WITH A SIMPLE FORMULA: WHITE HERO CONQUERS NATURE, DEFEATS HIS ENEMY, AND LEADS THE WAY WEST.
THE WILD WEST OPENED ON MAY 17, 1883 IN OMAHA, NEBRASKA TO AN ESTIMATED AUDIENCE OF EIGHT THOUSAND PEOPLE. A TWENTY PIECE BAND LED THE WAY.
WILD WEST ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen...What you are about to witness is not a performance in the common sense of that term, but an exhibition of skill on the part of men who have acquired that quality while gaining a livelihood...
BRIAN DIPPIE:
It was an entertainment phenomenon. There was nothing else like it. You had an arena entertainment where individuals would see all these aspects of Western history, horses, buffalo, riders, shooting going on. There was nothing else in the world as big as Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
NARRATOR:
THE ACTS PERFORMING THAT AFTERNOON BECAME STANDARD FARE IN "THE WILD WEST" SHOW, THE PONY EXPRESS, THE ATTACK ON THE DEADWOOD STAGECOACH, EVERYBODY SAVED IN THE NICK OF TIME BY WHO ELSE - CODY! EXHIBITION SHOOTING; BUCKING BRONCOS; ROPING AND RIDING. AT THE CLOSE, THE CROWD HAILED CODY WITH TREMENDOUS APPLAUSE, AND "THE WILD WEST" WAS AN UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS.
HARTFORD COURANT:
...the best open-air show ever seen ...The real sight of the whole thing is, after all, Buffalo Bill...Cody sits on a horse as if he were born to the saddle. His feats of shooting are perfectly wonderful...He has out-Barnumed Barnum"
-Hartford Courant
NARRATOR:
CODY'S SHOW WAS STILL NOT A THREAT TO P.T. BARNUM'S CIRCUS BUT AS AN INDIVIDUAL HE WAS THE UNDISPUTED STAR. AND THERE WAS THAT AURA OF "EVERYTHING GENUINE" THAT CODY INSISTED UPON FROM THE DEADWOOD STAGE TO THE BUCKSKIN FRINGE. TOPPING THAT WERE THE PLAYERS THEMSELVES - AGAIN, THE GENUINE ARTICLE.
BRIAN DIPPIE:
The aura of authenticity allows Buffalo Bill to select the ingredients that that real West, which we think of now as the mythic West, will consist of. That will include buffalo hunts, and Indian fights, and attacks on cabins, and Custer's last stand, and all those elements of the West that Buffalo Bill selected for portrayal. They become essentially the Western myth.
NARRATOR:
1893 WAS THE PINNACLE OF CODY'S FAME AND THE SUCCESS OF THE WILD WEST SHOW. AT THE WORLD'S FAIR IN CHICAGO, PRESIDENT GROVER CLEVELAND, OPENED THE SHOW. THE COWBOY BAND PLAYED 'THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER,' A SONG CODY HAD SELECTED FOR HIS LEAD-IN A FULL FIFTEEN YEAR'S BEFORE CONGRESS ADOPTED IT AS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.
CODY INTRODUCED A NEW FEATURE - "THE CONGRESS OF ROUGH RIDERS OF THE WORLD." FIVE YEARS LATER, COLONEL THEODORE ROOSEVELT WOULD DRAW UPON THAT ACT IN THE SPANISH AMERICAN WAR. CODY BECAME TEDDY ROOSEVELT'S PERSONAL HERO, AS WELL AS HERO TO COUNTLESS OTHERS THE WORLD OVER. POSTERS FOR THE SHOW COMPARED BUFFALO BILL WITH NAPOLEON. OTHERS ALLUDED TO CODY AS A SAVIOR "JE VIENS" I AM COMING" TO THE RESCUE.
PAUL HUTTON:
The Western myth that Buffalo Bill and others created was a myth of freedom. That's what it was represented as in the Wild West show, that's what it was represented as by Edison and others in the early films that they made, and that's what the West remains in our dreams.
NARRATOR:
FROM THE TALL TALES OF THE PLAINS TO THE MELODRAMA OF DIME NOVELS, FROM CODY'S EXTRAVAGANZAS TO THE WESTERN MOVIE, THE MYTH LIVES ON. SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE NEXT RIDGE IS A STATE OF MIND WHERE QUIET HEROES STILL RIDE INTO THE SUNSET AND DREAMS NEVER DIE. IT ALL COMES WITH THE TERRITORY IN THE WILD WEST.
