What is a Wild West Show?

THE WEST, referring to the Anglo-American frontier fascinated the imaginations of people in the cities of the late nineteenth century.

The Wild West connotes visions of a wild territory inhabited by wilder humans whose exploits and adventure ignited a global curiosity.

Mountain men, explorers, buffalo hunters, and hostile Indians inhabit the Wild West frontier. People dreamed about thee Wild West as

they explored the printed page – until Wild West shows.

Wild West shows emerged in the 1880s as reenactments that portrayed Custer’s battlefield with the Lakota at Little Bighorn, the Fetterman
Fight, and a host of skirmishes between Indians (mainly Sioux) and frontier settlers.

Buffalo Bill opened his first Wild West show in (on May 17th) 1883 at the Omaha fairgrounds. “ The Wild West, Rocky Mountain, and Prairie
Exhibition” was poorly performed compared to later shows, yet the audience loved it. Indian attacks became set pieces in these shows as stagecoaches
were attacked by Indians and then repulsed by Buffalo Bill and his partner Dr. William Frank Carver, part time dentist and heralded as “Champion Shot
of the World.” Cody was heralded as the grand marshal for the “Old Glory Blowout.”

Cody added contests and arranged for prizes in this new venture which would become the prototype for the modern rodeo and the Wild West show.
Cody formed a partnership with accomplished marksman Doc Carver. Hence was born the “Hon. W.F. Cody and Dr. W.F. Carver’s Wild West , Rocky Mountain,
and prairie exhibition.

Cody would tour Europe over his career to an estimated audience of fifty million and become the most famous American in the world, the first star.
After his true Wild West exploits, too numerous to mention here, Cody advocated the adoption of the “Star Spangled Banner” as the national
anthem, endorsed the vote for women, and volunteered to raise a company of “Rough Riders,” first for the Spanish American war. and then for World War I.

His death in 1917 brought an outpouring of emotion and international sorrow.

101 Ranch

The 101 Ranch Cowboys, Bliss OK, early 20th century. The 101 Ranch in Bliss Oklahoma, owned by the Miller Brothers, would make
an important contribution to the history of Wild West Shows. The 101 Ranch was at one time 110,000 acres in Ponca Indian country and exemplified
ranching in all its old time picturesqueness. Thousands of cattle, horses, its own schools, its own stores, 150frieght cars all made for an
impressive sight and reputation for the 101.

On this immense ranch, started in the 1890s, grew a dynasty of show cowboy tradition. Wranglers, buckaroos, trick shooters, ropers, and
cowboys of all sorts, embodied the incarnation of the vanished west.

The “101 Ranch Wild West show” featured as many as a thousand performers; Indians, clowns, sharpshooters, Russian Cossacks, bull riders,

and musicians, entertained large crowds at rodeo grounds and stadiums across the country in Europe, Mexico, and Canada.

Many 101 Ranch performers made the jump to film careers just as the Western was becoming an art form. Tom Mix, Hoot Gilson, Buck Jones, and
Ken Manard, all began at the 101 before they became film stars. Bill Picket the founder of modern day bull dogging was from the 101.

The Western film meant one thing “action”. Chases, Indian attacks upon a stagecoach, stampedes of cattle or bison, and shoot outs, all part of Wild
West shows. The movies drew upon dime –novels, James Fenimore Cooper novels, and Wild West shows for their plots and story structure. The
traditional story of crime, pursuit, showdown, and justice which became the staple of these westerns was rooted in Wild West shows of the past.

But while the 101 prospered for many year and Wild West defined the cowboy around the world the 1920’s resulted in the decline of Wild West shows.
Radio and film had begun to replace live shows and the 101 Ranch suffered a terrible flood in 1923 later to go bankrupt in1931. Buffalo Bill was long
gone and the 101 Ranch having its bones picked by scavengers.

Today the cowboy endures as an archetypal hero. The myth of the cowboy riding in from somewhere else, driving cattle, chasing outlaws, fleeing
the past to confront the future, has become permanently entrenched in the American experience.

Nick's Wild West Show is a group of entertainers ranging from cowboy poets, original western singer/songwriters, actors, trick ropers, gunfighters, stuntmen, Native American entertainers to the best authentic re-enactors available. 

Our entertainers re-create authentic scenes of the old west. Mountain men, indians, and wild west show re-enactors perform fights, poetry and even bare knuckle boxing.

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