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Elizabeth, nicknamed Plinky, and her husband Adolph Topperwein rose to fame as a sharpshooting duo known as the “Fabulous Topperweins.” They showcased their marksmanship skills on stage in the first half of the 20th century touring for nearly four decades
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Around 20 rifles at the Cody Firearms Museum came from Coors Brewing Company. Curator Danny Michael said Coors used these firearms in the 1980’s to try and revive a target shooting festival that combined marksmanship with beer drinking.
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A recently opened exhibition at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West considers why some printers made small, but meaningful, tweaks to the posters used to advertise the Wild West show.
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Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Jeremy Johnston says some of the images in posters that are part of a new exhibition opening this month are ones you might not expect.
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A new exhibition opening later this month at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West shares posters that were used to advertise the Wild West show in the late 19th and early 20th century.
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Rosa Bonheur, a 19th century French painter and sculptor most well-known for her highly detailed depictions of animals, never visited the American West. But Whitney Western Art Museum Assistant Curator Ashlea Espinal says she developed a fascination with the place through interacting with American artists and her friendship with William F. Cody.
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A fourteen-piece ragtime orchestra made up of Black musicians performed with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for two seasons in the early 1900s.
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Nan Aspinwall is the first woman to ride across the country solo on horseback. She completed the nearly 4,500 mile journey from San Francisco to New York in 1911.
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Traveling with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for more than a decade, Vicente Oropeza was a master of trick roping as practiced by the charro culture in Mexico.
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After the performers rode into the arena for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, a now familiar song opened the fanfare: “The Star Spangled Banner.”What might surprise people, says Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Jeremy Johnston, is the tradition of playing the anthem before events predated its adoption as America’s National Anthem.
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Some characters in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show were known for their sharpshooting skills, but Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Jeremy Johnston says their performances built up a common myth about westerners.
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In his Wild West Show, Buffalo Bill romanticized the Pony Express, the horse-back delivered mail service that operated between April 1860 and October 1861. He also claimed to have been a rider for the Pony Express and that he completed the longest ride for the service. But, Buffalo Bill Museum Curator Jeremy Johnston says whether he actually rode for the Pony Express is up for debate.