Buffalo Bill is a revival of an old favorite font that’s been around since 1888, the James Conner’s Sons foundry book of that same year is the oldest source I’ve seen for this old classic.
If you’re looking for the font used as the logo for Buffalo Bill’s Irma Hotel in Cody Wyoming please refer to the FontMesa Rough Riders font.
New to the Buffalo Bill font is the lowercase and many other characters that go into making a complete type font by today’s standards.
The Type 1 version is limited to the basic Latin and western European character sets while the Truetype and OpenType versions also include central and eastern European charcters.
Willaim F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody called America’s Greatest Showman was one of the United State’s first big celebrity entertainers known around the world, millions of people learned about the Old West through Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows which traveled throughout the United States and Europe.
William Cody, at age eleven, started work on a cattle drive and wagon train crossing the Great Plains many times, he further went on to fur trapping and gold mining then joined the Pony Express in 1860.
After the Civil War Cody went on to work for the Army as a scout and hunter where he gained his nickname Buffalo Bill.
In 1872 William Cody started his entertainment career on stage in Chicago along with Texas Jack who also worked as a scout, the Scouts of the Prarie was a great success and the following year it expanded to include Wild Bill Hickok and was eventually named The Buffalo Bill Combination.
By 1882 Texas Jack and Wild Bill Hickok had left the show and Buffalo Bill conceived the idea for the traveling Wild West Show using real cowboys, cowgirls, sharpshooters and Indians plus live buffalo and elk.
The Wild West shows began in 1883 and visited many cities throughout the United States. In 1887 writer Mark Twain convinced Cody to take the show overseas to Europe showing England, Germany and France a wonderful and adventuruos chapter of American history.
The shows continued in the United States and in 1908 William Cody combined his show with Pawnees Bill’s, in 1913 the show ran into financial trouble and was seized by the Denver sheriff until a $20,000 debt (borrowed from investor Harry Tammen) could be paid, Bill couldn’t pay the debt and the loan could not be extended so the assets were auctioned off.
William Cody continued to work off his debt with Harry Tammen by giving performances at the Sell’s-Floto Circus through 1915 then performed for another two years with other Wild West shows.
William F. Cody passed away in 1917 while visiting his sister in Denver and is buried on Lookout Mountain joined by his wife four years later.
Close friend Johnny Baker, the unofficial foster son of William Cody, began the Buffalo Bill Memorial Museum in 1921, over the years millions of people have visited William Cody’s grave and museum making it one of the top visitor attractions in the Denver area.
William F. Cody romantisized the West creating the Wild West love affair that many still have for it today through books and cinema.
