Newspapers / The New Bern Mirror … / July 28, 1972, edition 1 / Page 1
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15rrtt-(Bratiptt (Honttfn ffnblfr Ufftr^rM The NEW BERN 5^ Per Cw, VOLUME 15 NEW BERN, N. C. 28560, FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1972 NUMBER 20 Yesterday was when Buffalo Bill came to New Bern, with the first wild west show in history. The year was 18M, and folks , flocked to his big tent like Jime bugs heading for a watermelon rind. It was no skimiiy at traction. The cast not only in cluded several hundred cowboys and Indians, but the incomparable Annie Oakley, about whom a great Broadway musical would be written generations later. For 20 years before his death in 1917, William Frederick Cody (that was his real name) toureu America and Europe, reaping a fortune. The more he made, the faster he spent it. He did, however, buy con siderable acreage in Wyoming and Nebraska, and founded the town of Cody at the eastern entrance of Yeilowstone Nationai Park. His tomb is a vault that was dynamited out of solid rock on the top of Lookout Mountain, near Denver. Some of the outdoor stars on television today probably wouldn’t know a steer if Uiey met him face to face, but the performers brought to our town by Buffalo Bill were part and parcel of the genuine west. Cody was the last of a Une of noted scouts that included Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and a venture some gent known only as “Wild Bill.” Bom in Iowa, Buffalo Bill had done an awful lot of living by the time he arrived here. Newspapers were few and far between, but New Bemians were already well informed about his Amorous career. What they didn’t know was supplied by Cody’s press agent. He had the town in a tizzy for weeks prior to the big per formance. Unlike the stars of most road shows, before and since, Buffalo Bill was just as sensational as the billboards proclaimed him to be. Age had caught up with him, but he could ride with the best of them. Orphaned at the age of 11 when his father was stabbed to death, he became the original hotHTod teenager, as a rider for the Pony Express. No one along the 1,950 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, C!alifomia, was as daring in the saddle. It was often said that he traveled with the swiftness of the wind, delivering mail between places numy miles apart. Too bad he isn’t around to put a little get up and go into snMUsh Mr. Zip, Before long, the plains and Indian habits were an open book to Cody. He scouted for the Yankees in the War Between the States, fought later against the Sioux and Cheyennes, and kUled Chief Yellow Hand of the Chi^nnes in man to man combat. How did he get the nickname of Buffalo Bill? That was strictly business. He signed a contract to ftimish firesh buffalo meat for laborers who were putting down the track of the KansasJ*acific railroad. His claim that he killed 4,800 (Continued on page 8) ON A SUMMER DAY—“The heavens declare the glory of God,” wrote David for the Good Book, and only the Creator could bring us this majestic view of a thunderhead hovering over the darkened Neuse. For those who mi^t not know, a thun- deriiead is the swollen upper portion of a thun dercloud, often associated with the coming of a thunderstorm. 'Hieodore Baxter happened to have his camera handy when this one developed. A lover of the great outdoors, he recognized its awesome splmdor, and hastened to record it on film. The sun, still shining over New Bern, sprinkles diamonds in the river to your left, but to your right the broad stream is denied these gems, by the huge cloud directly above. If you want to be technical, and scientific, a thunderiiead is also called a cumulonimbus, because it is an extremely dense, verticaUy developed cumulus with a relatively hazy outline and a glaciated top. See how much research we do?
The New Bern Mirror (New Bern, N.C.)
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July 28, 1972, edition 1
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