Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull & the Wild West | History Traveler Episode 11

[Music] all right so we are making our way through Colorado and we were traveling down I 17 just outside of Denver and happened to see a sign that said Buffalo Bill Museum and gravesite next exit so I don't know how you can go through the West and not visit the Museum of the quintessential icon of the West so we're here just outside of Denver on Lookout Mountain visiting the Buffalo Bill Cody Museum and gravesite Buffalo Bill was of course well known for his Wild West Show and yeah we're gonna go in here and see what we can learn [Music] starting off talking about Buffalo Bills career from 1846 to 1866 where he was a scout for the US Army and they have one of his bowie knives here she's pretty cool and also this cane that was carved from a Confederate flag staff pretty neat he also was with the Pony Express for a while and this gun is crazy this is a Colt Dragoon revolver and that thing just looks like a beast so of course any time we see a gun we have to film it this is a Springfield model 1866 in a 50 caliber that was probably what he used as a buffalo hunting rifle here's something that's really cool that I did not know though and that's that buffalo bill was a Medal of Honor recipient pretty interesting I'm gonna have to look that up and see some of the details about that so what buffalo bill is probably best known for now is his famous Wild West Show so here are a few items from from that era so here's a program to one of the Wild West shows in 1885 there's a shotgun that was used by a trick shooter named Johnny Baker oh and this is pretty cool that is Sitting Bull's peace pipe very interesting so of course the name Buffalo Bill comes from his time as a Buffalo hunter where he killed Buffalo to provide meat for the army and then with the destruction of the Buffalo he became kind of a conservationist and at one point had the fourth largest herd of buffalo in the United States and that fourth largest herd consisted of only 18 animals so a lot of Buffalo that are here today are descendants from that herd pretty cool so buffalo bill is definitely an entertainer and a showman this is the last hat that was worn by him at a public appearance in 1916 just a couple months before his death it's a pretty flamboyant outfit and then this was his favorite saddle was given to him by King Edward the seventh pretty cool there's a poster advertising for Johnny Baker one of the marksman of the Wild West Show and this this just seems like a bad idea there's a plaster cast of Buffalo Bills hand made shortly before his death interesting I think there's a headdress that was owned by short bull who was a leader of the Lakota during the Ghost Dance period pretty interesting and of course at the Buffalo Bill Museum guns guns guns so here's kind of a cool little display where you can see where Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show toured you can see I mean just all over Europe and then tons and tons of locations throughout the United States so really kind of taking the story of the Old West literally all over the world [Music] I have to give credit to my wife for pointing this one out to me this is a war shirt otherwise known as a scalp shirt because it's decorated with strands of hair from scalps Wow holy smokes this is the headdress that was owned by Sitting Bull that is crazy probably one of the most well known Native Americans in all of Old West history right up there with Crazy Horse read his story because it is fascinating and it is tragic they also have the moccasins and dress that was owned by his wife but wow that might be the coolest thing in the whole museum [Music] okay so that museum was exceptionally cool I really really liked what they did with that completely worth the price of admission I did not know that Buffalo Bill had won the Medal of Honor that was pretty interesting to me by far the coolest piece in in the whole complex was Sitting Bull's headdress I really really liked that so now we're heading up the hill to see the final resting place of Buffalo Bill so here it is the final resting place of Buffalo Bill Cody one of the icons of the West now there was some I guess controversy about where his final resting place should be late in life he said that he wanted to be buried on Lookout Mountain where he could look out over the city of Denver there was some controversy there the the city of Cody Wyoming thought that he should be buried there there was a place in Nebraska that thought that he should be buried in Nebraska but he ended up being put here at Lookout Mountain and at one point the Colorado National Guard had to bring a tank up here in order to guard the grave and make sure that people didn't come and try and steal the body and move it but after his wife died they poured tons of concrete here over the grave and ensured that nobody would try and steal it and here you can also see the marker for his Medal of Honor very cool this was an unplanned stop but I'm glad that we made it learned a lot today so apparently Teddy Roosevelt got the name Rough Riders from Buffalo Bill and the Congress of Rough Riders of the world and I have learned this in the bathroom [Music]

Channel: The History Underground

Views: 15,761

Rating: 4.979557 out of 5

Keywords: old west, wild west, buffalo, buffalo bill cody, buffalo bill, sitting bull, indians, wild west show, history, history travler, history underground, education, denver, stuff to do, colorado, mountains, famous graves

Id: o11erqzIKcA

Length: 9min 44sec (584 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 23 2019