At Portsmouth, Virginia on November 11, 1916

William F. Cody, asso­ci­ated with a West­ern exhi­bi­tion titled “Buf­falo Bill (Him­self) and the 101 Ranch Wild West Com­bined,” passed by this spot on a route that would take the parade to the inter­sec­tion of Washington and Lin­coln Streets, site of the “Grand Finale.”

The suc­cess enjoyed by the Fourth of July cel­e­bra­tion known as “The Old Glory Blowout” at North Platte, Nebraska, on July 4, 1882, con­vinced William F. Cody to orga­nize “Buf­falo Bill’s Wild West” and tour the United States and parts of Europe. Buf­falo Bill was and is a sym­bol of a glam­orous and col­or­ful era in United States history.

He lit­er­ally crated and shipped sam­ples of the “Wild West” to cen­ters of pop­u­la­tion around the world, giving mil­lions of Amer­i­cans and Euro­peans the opportunity to view first hand a part of Amer­i­can history that had cap­tured the pop­u­lar imagination.

Ded­i­cated to William F. Cody, an illus­tri­ous Amer­i­can, remem­bered as the “Father of Rodeo,” “The First Interna­tional Star,” and “America’s Good­will Ambassador-at-Large”

Marker is on Water Street south of High Street, on the left when traveling south.

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources: