William F. Cody might not have become “Buffalo Bill” without an 1866 Springfield trapdoor needle gun. That’s according to Danny Michael, curator of the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West.
“He used it for buffalo hunting. This is the gun that won him the name Buffalo Bill. Shortly after the Civil War he was hired by the Kansas Pacific Railroad to provide food for the workers on the railroad,” he said.
Michael said people expect Buffalo Bill’s firearm to be flashy; when in reality, it's a pretty simple gun that he used early on in his career as a buffalo hunter.
“I think it kind of speaks to where he’s at in his life. He just got out of the Civil War. He’s not the famous wealthy guy that we think of later. This is sort of a surplus military firearm. It’s relatively affordable; it’s practical,” he said.
By his own account in his autobiography, Cody wrote that he killed nearly 4,300 bison with this gun during his railroad contract. He also used it when he guided buffalo hunts that glamourize the destruction of bison herds on the plains.
