Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917

Republican National Committee Chairman George B. Cortelyou encloses a telegram from William F. Cody.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-12-21

President Roosevelt’s horses are still ill. John Willis and Buffalo Bill visited. Roosevelt walks with Granville Fortescue but admits he needs to get more exercise. He relates a story about Archie and Quentin reciting poems.

Collection

Harvard College Library

Creation Date

1904-02-19

Ray H. Mattison acknowledges receipt of photographs from J. H. Reid and requests information on the Elkhorn Ranch. Mattison includes some early information on the location of the Elkhorn Ranch and Theodore Roosevelt’s ranch house.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1949-10-07

Buffalo Bill warns that the continued destruction of timber and underbrush in the Bighorn Basin will threaten the region’s ability to acquire water for irrigation.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-03-03

After talking with George Horace Lorimer, President Roosevelt went back and read The Plum Tree through all the way, after previously having read only half of it. The ending of the book reconciles Roosevelt to many of the problems he had with it throughout, but he still holds many issues with the book which he lays out for Lorimer. The author, David Graham Phillips, falls into the trap of overstating the sort of corruption that is present in politics, and while Roosevelt freely admits that corruption is present–which, he points out, he is working against–there are also many good people working in politics as well. In a postscript of several days later, Roosevelt comments on several of Phillips’s articles on the Senate, in which he acts similarly by taking “certain facts that are true in themselves, and […] ignoring utterly a very much large mass of facts that are just as true and just as important.” Roosevelt criticizes Phillips for working with William Randolph Hearst to achieve notoriety.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1906-05-12

Marcus Alonzo Hanna’s death was a tragedy. He had many “large and generous traits.” Near the end, Hanna sent Roosevelt a note that showed him at his best. Roosevelt recently had lunch with Buffalo Bill. Granville Fortescue is working to get sent to Korea in order to see the fighting of the Russo-Japanese War. Roosevelt agrees that a West Point education would be good for Ted Roosevelt, just like it would be good for anyone, but he believes that Ted has too much potential to enter the army.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-02-19

William Frederick Cody requests that Lieutenant Clarence A. Stott of the 12th Cavalry be detailed for a year of cavalry school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, instead of completing his orders in the Philippines. President Roosevelt would like Stott to go to the school and, if not possible, asks that Secretary of War Root complete a thorough reply for Roosevelt to send to Cody.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1903-06-15

Gifford Pinchot recommends Alexander Proctor as the sculptor for a statue of Buffalo Bill. Pinchot thinks Proctor “knows and understands the West, and the spirit of the West.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1917-03-10

A series of short letters sent to Daniel Carter Beard about kinds of merit badges, called “Top Notches,” that could be offered to Beard’s Sons of Daniel Boone which, in 1909, became the Boy Pioneers of America. The organization later merged with the nascent Boy Scouts of America. One of the short letters is from Theodore Roosevelt with suggestions for actions that merit “Top Notches.”

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1907-04-09

Various pieces of commonly known footage of Theodore Roosevelt from different times and places compiled into one film. He is seen speaking to and greeting guests at Sagamore Hill, and posing with Navy officers. The footage begins with a shot of ruined buildings, likely damaged in World War I. For unknown reasons, a shot of William F. Cody giving his Indian Scout handshake to a line of visitors is inserted near the middle of the footage.

Collection

Sherman Grinberg Film Collection

Creation Date

1955

President Roosevelt rides on a horse with a “Wild West show offer” in his pocket and shoots his gun between the “House” and “Senate.” He says, “I think I’ve got Buffalo Bill beaten to a frazzle!”

comments and context

Comments and Context

A frequent target, so to speak, of political cartoonists in the waning days of Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency was to speculate on the waxing days of his subsequent career or pursuits. Roosevelt was relatively young at fifty years of age, and his many accomplishments in a variety of fields provided cartoonists with fodder.

E. Kissler Sweet complains that the American home is a farce and suggests the adoption of more laws governing marriage.

Collection

Library of Congress Manuscript Division

Creation Date

1904-03-15

A young “Boy Scout” standing outside his tent meets “Davy Crockett, Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack [Omohundro], Kit Carson, California Joe, [and] Dan’l Boone.” Caption: “Put it thar, Pard! Yer do us proud!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1912-06-05

Carl Parcher Russell writes to Don Russell regarding a manuscript from Charles Marble, also known as “Buckskin Charley”, who was a wilderness guide for Theodore Roosevelt. Russell mentions an article in The Westerners Brand Book.

Collection

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Creation Date

1950-02-09