Does not happen very often. Actually I received four e-mails. After looking over what I received, I thought I would place it here in the Gazette. Instead of trying to describe what I got, I decided to post all. So here goes.
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Dear Editor.
The article I have attached describes my new B-western books series. I write and illustrate the Hollywood Cowboy Detectives series currently available on Amazon.

I've also attached a jpeg of the first book's cover (Mystery at Movie Ranch). Because of the size of the jpegs, I will follow this email with separate sends of other covers.

Thanks for your time and consideration.
Darryle Purcell
(928) 768-2581
purcells@citlink.net
-----attached article-----------

 Classic B-western stars ride again

Several almost-forgotten B-western stars of the past have found work in a new series of historical fiction westerns.

Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson, Crash Corrigan, William S. Hart, Tom Mix and other film-cowboy heroes from the 20s through the 50s have returned to battle Nazis, saboteurs and old-fashioned bad guys in the Hollywood Cowboy Detectives (HCD) series published by Page Turner’s Buckskin Editions in both Kindle and paperback versions.

Darryle Purcell, a long-time Mohave County, Ariz., resident known for his topical newspaper columns and political cartoons, has reset his editorial sights on historical western fiction.

“I grew up enjoying the B-western movies and serials made during the 1930s through the ’50s,” the former Mohave Valley Daily News managing editor said. “Many of those films were contemporary to the years they were produced. Western heroes such as Col. Tim McCoy would board a train in the metropolitan east of, say, 1936 and arrive in the old west (quite often Arizona) to battle evil doers. We all remember films where the Three Mesquiteers fought the Nazis in the early 1940s.”

Purcell is writing and illustrating the 1930s-contemporary western series, which embraces the adventurous world of pulp publishing while also saluting the great western movie serials of that era. The first publication, Mystery at Movie Ranch, is comprised of 12 cliffhanger chapters set in the San Fernando Valley area of southern California during the filming of the 1934 Mascot Pictures serial, Mystery Mountain, starring Ken Maynard.

“I do a lot of research on what was being filmed, where, by which studio within a specific time frame,” he said. “I then carve a window in the time period where certain people could have joined together to deal with an adventure.”

Sean “Curly” Woods, former Los Angeles Examiner crime beat reporter and current studio flack, is Purcell’s main fictional character who appears in all HCD publications. In Movie Ranch, Woods’ assignment is to write fluff public relations articles about the serial and its stars and keep Maynard out of trouble while looking into the possible sabotage of the Mascot production.

“From a variety of sources, Ken Maynard was a temperamental alcoholic,” Purcell said. “Nobody’s perfect. He was still a skilled rodeo, circus and film cowboy idolized by youth from the 1920s through the ’50s.”

While helping Maynard battle his personal demons, Woods discovers real enemies are not only targeting the western production, but the American way of life. Joined by western movie star and World Champion Rodeo Cowboy Hoot Gibson, Maynard and Woods engage in a series of deadly encounters with an army of anti-American terrorists ruled by a sinister mastermind known only as the Viper. The Hollywood Cowboy Detectives deal with organized crime, a sniper attack, aerial combat against an experimental German flying machine, interrogation by a sadistic enemy scientist in an underground stronghold, an ungodly creature who is the product of evil experiments, and a variety of battles with those who would eliminate all who believe in freedom and justice.

The Kindle version of the Mystery at Movie Ranch can be purchased on Amazon for $1.99. But for those who still like books printed in ink on paper, a paperback version of Mystery at Movie Ranch can be purchased at Amazon.com for $8.99, which includes the bonus HCD short story, Mystery of the Murdered Badman. In that short story, Woods works to save Maynard from being charged with the murder of a western-movie villain and abduction and possible murder of a former silent-screen vamp. All HCD publications have color covers and black and white internal illustrations in the style of pulps and adventure novels of the 1930s.

The illustrated Mystery of the Arizona Dragon is also currently available as a Kindle download from Amazon. In that adventure, Woods is sent to a dude ranch, not far from where California, Nevada and Arizona meet, to investigate problems while the cast and crew of Charlie Chan Goes West prepare for filming. Hoot Gibson, Warner Oland and Keye Luke join the HCD hero as he attempts to track down the source of a variety of deadly incidents. It is also available as a paperback with the bonus HCD short story, Mystery of the Stuntman’s Ghost.

The recently published HCD adventure, Mystery of the Matinee Murders is also available in paperback and on Kindle. In Matinee Murders, Woods, Gibson and Crash Corrigan are joined by Orson Welles and a radio-theater group on a studio-funded road trip to entertain children in hospitals and at Saturday matinee presentations. A mysterious assassin hounds the entertainers, leaving a trail of victims killed with cobra venom. Following a full-scale military assault, the Hollywood Cowboy Detectives are captured and taken to an underground fortress where an enemy power keeps an army of the dead. Cowboy star Ken Maynard joins the action in a final showdown with a Nazi terrorist who is about to unleash death and worse upon a theater full of young Saturday matinee western fans. In the paperback, Matinee Murders is joined by a bonus pulp-style mystery about a radio detective known as The Man of the Mist.

The HCD adventure, Mystery of the Alien Banshee is currently available in Kindle format. When it is published in paperback, it will be accompanied by the bonus short story, Mystery of the Kidnapped Cowboy. All short stories are also available individually on Kindle.
In the soon-to-be-published HCD novel Mystery of the Howling Angels, classic western stars Tom Mix and Hoot Gibson join Republic Pictures flack Sean “Curly” Woods in a race from Hollywood to the Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma. With bounties on their heads, the Hollywood Cowboy Detectives are one step in front of murderous agents of the Congressional Shadow Caucus, an organization of federally elected officials who support an alliance with Nazi Germany. With the assistance of G-man Donovan Slate, the trio engage in shootouts on Route 66 in California, battles against an attacking force in Phoenix, Arizona, and on a passenger train in Texas, and aerial combat and ambushes in the wilderness of the legendary Hundred and One Ranch on the panhandle of Oklahoma. 

Warned by tribal spirits and dogged by visions from beyond the grave, the HCD heroes fight traitors who have chosen to carry the banner of evil against their own country. Tom, Hoot and Curly fight for their lives through the first week of 1939. Another Great War is coming, and, although they remain secret to most citizens, the first battles are waged in Washington and America’s great Southwest. Old friends and new unite in the struggle against fascist killers, some of whom consider themselves patriotic Americans.

“My publisher at Page Turner’s Buckskin Edition Westerns is a real fan of old-time western and science fiction pulp publications as well as the B-movies of the same era,” Purcell said. “Buckskin is a perfect fit for my writing and illustration efforts.”

Purcell, who was public information director for Mohave County, Ariz., from May 2005 until January 2013, had been managing editor of the Mohave Valley Daily News in Bullhead City, Ariz., for 12 years. The former editorial cartoonist spent a total of 23 years in daily newspapers as well as a few years illustrating and art directing educational comic books and young reader books, drawing gag cartoons for rock and roll and motorcycle enthusiast publications and working in layout and character design on some Saturday morning animated cartoons.

“I reached into my work experiences as well as my time in the military, having served in the First Cavalry in Vietnam and the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions stateside, to create the characters and attitudes that appear in the Hollywood Cowboy Detectives series,” Purcell said. “The HCD series embodies the lessons of the classic B-westerns: Life is hard but good will triumph over evil.” 

Some may believe that philosophy is out of date. But, according to Purcell, many of the B-western stars of the 1920s and ’30s not only portrayed the just-hero, they lived by the Code of the West. Most were Great War veterans. Some, like Tim McCoy served in both world wars. James Stewart, Clark Gable and many other western stars of later years left their film careers to serve in World War II. 

“With this series, I hope to revive the lessons of the straight shooters while introducing a new generation to some of the great cowboy heroes of the past. Besides having served in the First World War, most of them had been working cowboys on ranches, rodeos and wild-west shows before joining the motion picture studio system. Often, their movie careers began as stuntmen for other, less-talented, film stars. The HCD series honors the hard work, amazing action talents and ethical lessons of the B-western film stars of the past,” Purcell said. 

The illustrated book series can be found at Amazon.com by searching Books for Hollywood Cowboy Detectives.

William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917) was an American scout, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory (now the  U.S. state of Iowa), in Le Claire but he grew up for several years in his father's hometown in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill started working at the age of eleven after his father's death, and became a rider for the Pony Express at age 14. During the American Civil War, he served for the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout to the US Army during the Indian Wars, receiving the Medal of Honor in 1872. One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded his Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours throughout the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Great Britain and Europe. Early life and education William Frederick Cody was born on February 26, 1846 on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa. His father Isaac was born on September 5, 1811, in Toronto Township, Upper Canada, now part of Mississauga, Ontario, directly west of Toronto. Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock, Cody's mother, was born about 1817 in New Jersey, near Philadelphia. After Mary Laycock moved to Cincinnati to teach school, she met and married Isaac Cody. She was a descendant of Josiah Bunting, a Quaker who had settled in Pennsylvania. There is no historical evidence to indicate Buffalo Bill was raised as a Quaker. In 1847 the couple moved to Ontario, having their son baptized in 1847, as William Cody, at the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County (present-day Peel Region, of which Mississauga is part), not far from his father's family's farm. The Chapel was built with Cody money, and the land was donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township. They lived in Ontario for several years. In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural Scott County, Iowa for $2000, and he and his family moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Territory. In these years before the Civil War, Kansas was overtaken by political and physical conflict related to the slavery question. Isaac Cody was against slavery. He was invited to speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men often held meetings. His antislavery speech so angered the crowd that they threatened to kill him if he didn't step down. One man jumped up and stabbed Cody twice with a bowie knife. Rively, the store's owner, rushed Isaac Cody to get treatment, but he never fully recovered from his injuries. In Kansas, the family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery supporters. Cody's father spent time away from home for his own safety. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. The young Cody, despite his youth and being ill at the time, rode 30 miles (48 km) to warn his father. Cody's father went to Cleveland, Ohio to organize a colony of thirty families to bring back to Kansas, in order to add to the anti-slavery population. During his return trip he caught a respiratory infection which, compounded by the lingering effects of his stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to Isaac Cody's death in April 1857. After the father's death, the Cody family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill Cody took a job with a freight carrier as a "boy extra." On horseback he would ride up and down the length of a wagon train, and deliver messages between the drivers and workmen. Next he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the United States Army to Utah, to put down a rumored rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City. According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story, the Utah War was where he first began his career as an "Indian fighter":         Presently the moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly across its face was the figure of         an Indian. He wore this war-bonnet of the Sioux, at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in         the river-bottom 30 feet (9 m) below; in another second he would drop one of my friends. I raised         my old muzzle-loader and fired. The figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a         splash in the water. "What is it?" called McCarthy, as he hurried back. "It's over there in the         water." "Hi!" he cried. 'Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!' So began my career as an         Indian fighter.

Born  William Frederick Cody February 26, 1846 Le Claire, Iowa, U.S. Died  January 10, 1917 (aged 70) Denver, Colorado, U.S. Cause of death  Kidney failure Resting place  Lookout Mountain, Golden, Colorado 39°43?57?N 105°14?17?W Other names  Buffalo Bill Cody Occupation  Army scout, Pony Express rider, ranch hand, wagon train driver, buffalo hunter, fur trapper, gold prospector, showman Known for  Buffalo Bill Wild West shows which provided education and entertainment about bronco riding, handling bovine and equine livestock, roping, and other herdsmen skills seen in present day rodeos Spouse(s)  Louisa Frederici                               (1843–1921) (m. 1866–1917) Children      Arta Cody (1866-1904)     Kit Carson Cody (1870-1876)     Orra Maude Cody (1872-1883)     Irma Louisa Cody Garlow (1883-1918) Parent(s)      Isaac Cody     Mary Ann Bosnell Laycock Cody Awards  Medal of Honor

Age 19

At the age of 14, in 1860 Cody was struck by gold fever, with news of gold at Fort Colville, Idaho and the Holcomb Valley Gold Rush in California, but on his way to the gold fields, he met an agent for the Pony Express. He signed with them, and after building several stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider. He worked at this until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside. Military service After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War, but was refused because of his young age. He began working with a United States freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In 1863 at age 17, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry and served until discharged in 1865. The next year, Cody married Louisa Frederici. They had four children. Two died young when the family was living in Rochester, New York. They and a third child are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, in the City of Rochester. Cody went back to work for the Army in 1868 and was Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry during the Plains Wars. Part of the time, he scouted for Indians and fought in 16 battles; at other times, he hunted and killed bison to supply the Army and the Kansas Pacific Railroad. In January 1872, Cody was a scout for Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia's highly publicized royal hunt.

He claimed to have had many other jobs, including as a trapper, bullwhacker, "Fifty-Niner" in Colorado, a Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager, but historians have since had difficulty documenting them. He may have fabricated some for publicity. Nickname "Buffalo Bill" got his nickname after the American Civil War, when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 American bison (commonly known as buffalo) in eighteen months, (1867–1868). Cody and hunter William Comstock competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, in which Cody won by killing 68 bison to Comstock's 48. Comstock, part Cheyenne and a noted hunter, scout, and interpreter, used a fast-shooting Henry repeating rifle, while Cody competed with a larger-caliber Springfield Model 1863, which he called Lucretia Borgia after legendary beautiful, ruthless Italian noblewoman, the subject of a popular contemporary Victor Hugo play of the same name. Cody explained that while his formidable opponent, Comstock, chased after his buffalo, engaging from the rear of the herd and leaving a trail of killed buffalo "scattered over a distance of three miles", Cody - likening his strategy to a billiards player "nursing" his billiard balls during "a big run" - first rode his horse to the front of the herd to target the leaders, forcing the followers to one side, eventually causing them to circle and create an easy target, dropping them close together. The legend is born

1875

In 1869, Cody met Ned Buntline. Afterward, Buntline published a story for Street and Smith's New York Weekly which was based on Cody's adventures (largely made up by Buntline). Then Buntline published a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen. Many other sequels followed, by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from 1870s through the early part of the twentieth century. Cody became world famous for his Wild West Shows, which toured in Great Britain and Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West. Emilio Salgari, a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West

Wild Bill Hickok, Texas Jack Omohundro and Buffalo Bill Cody in 1873

In December 1872, Cody traveled to Chicago to make his stage debut with friend Texas Jack Omohundro in The Scouts of the Prairie, one of the original Wild West shows produced by Ned Buntline. During the 1873–1874 season, Cody and Omohundro invited their friend James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok to join them in a new play called Scouts of the Plains. The troupe toured for ten years. Cody's part typically included an 1876 incident at the Warbonnet Creek, where he claimed to have scalped a Cheyenne warrior. In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska, Cody founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West", a circus-like attraction that toured annually. (Despite popular misconception, the word "show" was not a part of the title.) With his show, Cody traveled throughout the United States and Europe and made many contacts. He stayed, for instance, in Garden City, Kansas, in the presidential suite of the former Windsor Hotel. He was befriended by the mayor and state representative, a frontier scout, rancher, and hunter named Charles "Buffalo" Jones. In 1893, Cody changed the title to "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World". The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included US and other military, cowboys, American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their best attire. Turks, Gauchos, Arabs, Mongols and Georgians, displayed their distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors would see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many historical western figures participated in the show. For example, Sitting Bull appeared with a band of 20 of his braves. Cody's headline performers were well known in their own right. People such as Annie Oakley and her

With his profits, Cody purchased a 4,000-acre (16 km2) ranch near North Platte, Nebraska, in 1886. Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn for winter storage of the show's livestock. In 1887, Cody took the show to Great Britain in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria attended a performance. It played in London before going on to Birmingham and Salford near Manchester, where it stayed for five months. In 1889, the show toured Europe, and in 1890 Cody met Pope Leo XIII. On 8 March 1890, a competition took place. Buffalo Bill had met some of the Italian "butteri" (a less-well known sort of Italian equivalent of cowboys) and said his men were more skilled at roping calves and performing other similar actions. A group of Buffalo Bill's men challenged nine butteri, led by Augusto Imperiali, at Prati di Castello neighbourhood in Rome. The Italian butteri easily won the competition. Augusto Imperiali became a sort of local hero after the event: a street and a monument were dedicated to him in his home town (Cisterna di Latina), and in the 1920s and 1930s, he was featured as the hero in a series of comic strips. Cody set up an independent exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, which greatly contributed to his popularity in the United States. It vexed the promoters of the fair, who had first rejected his request to participate. On October 29, 1901 outside Lexington, North Carolina, a freight train crashed into one unit of the train carrying Buffalo Bill's show from Charlotte, North Carolina to Danville, Virginia. The freight train's engineer had thought that the entire show train had passed, not realizing it was three units, and returned to the tracks. 110 horses were killed by the accident or had to be put down later. These

Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill Montreal QC, 1885

In 1908, Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the "Two Bills" show. That show was foreclosed on when it was playing in Denver, Colorado.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Tours Europe

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West toured Europe eight times, the first four tours between 1887 and 1892, and the last four from 1902 to 1906.

The Wild West first went to London in 1887 as part of the American Exhibition, which coincided with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, requested a private preview of the Wild West performance; he was impressed enough to arrange a command performance for Queen Victoria. The Queen enjoyed the show and meeting the performers, setting the stage for another command performance on June 20, 1887 for her Jubilee guests. Royalty from all over Europe attended, including the future Kaiser Wilhelm II and future King George V. These royal encounters provided Buffalo Bill’s Wild West an endorsement and publicity that ensured its success. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West closed its successful London run in October 1887 after more than 300 performances, with more than 2.5 million tickets sold. The tour made stops in Birmingham and Manchester before returning to the U.S. in May 1888 for a short summer tour.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West returned to Europe in May 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, France, an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille and featured the debut of the Eiffel Tower The tour moved to the South of France and Barcelona, Spain, then on to Italy. While in Rome, a Wild West delegation was received by Pope Leo XIII. Buffalo Bill was disappointed that the condition of the Colosseum did not allow it to be a venue; however, at Verona, the Wild West did perform in the ancient Roman amphitheater. The tour finished with stops in Austria-Hungary and Germany.

In 1891 the show toured cities in Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Great Britain to close the season. Cody depended on a number of staff to manage arrangements for touring with the large and complex show: in 1891 Major Burke was the general manager for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Company; William Laugan (sic), supply agent; George C. Crager, Sioux interpreter, considered leader of relations with the Indians; and John Shangren, a native interpreter. In 1891, Buffalo Bill performed in Karlsruhe, Germany, in the Südstadt Quarter. The inhabitants of Südstadt are nicknamed "Indianer" (German for American Indians) to this day and the best accepted theory says that this is due to Buffalo Bill's show.

The show's 1892 tour was confined to Great Britain; it featured another command performance for Queen Victoria. The tour finished with a six-month run in London before leaving Europe for nearly a decade.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West returned to Europe in December 1902 with a fourteen-week run in London, capped by a visit from King Edward VII and the future King George V. The Wild West traveled throughout Great Britain during the 1902-03 tour as well as the 1904 tour, performing in nearly every city large enough to support it. The 1905 tour began in April with a two-month run in Paris before moving into the rest of France, where it performed mostly one-night stands, concluding in December. The final tour of 1906 began in France on March 4, and quickly moved on to Italy for two months. The Wild West traveled east: performing in Austria, the Balkans, Hungary, Romania, and the Ukraine, before returning west to tour in Poland, Bohemia (later Czech Republic), Germany, and Belgium.

The show was enormously successful in Europe, making Cody an international celebrity and an American icon. Mark Twain commented, "…It is often said on the other side of the water that none of the exhibitions which we send to England are purely and distinctly American. If you will take the Wild West show over there you can remove that reproach." The Wild West brought an exotic foreign world to life for its European audiences, allowing a last glimpse at the fading American frontier.

Several members of the Wild West show died of accidents or disease during these tours in Europe: 

In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of Cody, the seat of Park County in northwestern Wyoming. Today the Old Trail Town museum is at the center of the community and honors the traditions of Western life. Cody first passed through the region in the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town. Streets in the town were named after his several associates: Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein and Salsbury. The town was incorporated in 1901.

In November 1902, Cody opened the Irma Hotel, which he named after his daughter. He envisioned that a growing number of tourists would be coming to Cody via the recently opened Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up the Cody Road along the North Fork of the Shoshone River to visit Yellowstone Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed construction of the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Tepee in 1905 along the Cody Road  with the assistance of artist and rancher Abraham Archibald Anderson.

Cody established the TE Ranch, located on the South Fork of the Shoshone River about thirty-five miles from Cody. When he acquired the TE property, he stocked it with cattle sent from Nebraska and South Dakota. His new herd carried the TE brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for "Buffalo Bill's Wild West", and he bought more land to add to the TE Ranch. Eventually Cody held around 8,000 acres (32 km²) of private land for grazing operations and ran about 1,000 head of cattle. He operated a dude ranch, pack horse camping trips, and big game hunting business at and from the TE Ranch. In his spacious ranch house, he entertained notable guests from Europe and America.

Irrigation

Larry McMurtry, along with historians such as R.L. Wilson, asserts that at the turn of the 20th century, Buffalo Bill Cody was the most recognizable celebrity on Earth. While Cody's show brought appreciation for the Western and American Indian cultures, he saw the American West change dramatically during his life. Bison herds, which had once numbered in the millions, were threatened with extinction. Railroads crossed the plains, barbed wire and other types of fences divided the land for farmers and ranchers, and the once-threatening Indian tribes were confined to reservations. Wyoming's resources of coal, oil and natural gas were beginning to be exploited toward the end of his life.[16]

The Shoshone River was dammed for hydroelectric power as well as for irrigation. In 1897 and 1899 Cody and his associates acquired from the State of Wyoming the right to take water from the Shoshone River to irrigate about 169,000 acres (680 km2) of land in the Big Horn Basin. They began developing a canal to carry water diverted from the river, but their plans did not include a water storage reservoir. Cody and his associates were unable to raise sufficient capital to complete their plan. Early in 1903 they joined with the Wyoming Board of Land Commissioners in urging the federal government to step in and help with irrigation development in the valley.

The Shoshone Project became one of the first federal water development projects undertaken by the newly formed Reclamation Service, later to become known as the Bureau of Reclamation. After Reclamation took over the project in 1903, investigating engineers recommended constructing a dam on the Shoshone River in the canyon west of Cody. Construction of the Shoshone Dam started in 1905, a year after the Shoshone Project was authorized. When it was completed in 1910, it was the tallest dam in the world. Almost three decades after its construction, the name of the dam and reservoir was changed to Buffalo Bill Dam by an act of Congress to honor Cody.

His 1879 autobiography is titled The Life and Adventures of Buffalo Bill. A final autobiography, titled "The Great West That Was: 'Buffalo Bill's' Life Story," was serialized in Hearst's International Magazine from August 1916 to July 1917. and ghostwritten by James J. Montague. It contained a number of errors, in part because it was completed after Cody's death in January 1917.

Death

Cody died of kidney failure on January 10, 1917, surrounded by family and friends at his sister's house in Denver. Cody was baptized into the Catholic Church the day before his death by Father Christopher Walsh of the Denver Cathedral.[44][45][46] He received a full Masonic funeral. Upon the news of Cody's death, tributes were made by George V, Kaiser Wilhelm II, and President Woodrow Wilson. His funeral service was in Denver at the Elks Lodge Hall. The Wyoming governor John B. Kendrick, a friend of Cody's, led the funeral procession to the cemetery.

At the time of his death, Cody's once great fortune had dwindled to less than $100,000. He left his burial arrangements up to his wife Louisa. She said that he had always said he wanted to be buried on Lookout Mountain, which was corroborated by their daughter Irma, Cody's sisters, and family friends. But other family members joined the people of Cody to say Buffalo Bill should be buried in the town he founded. The controversy continued.

On June 3, 1917, Cody was buried on Colorado's Lookout Mountain in Golden, west of the city of Denver, on the edge of the Rocky Mountains, overlooking the Great Plains. His burial site was selected by his sister Mary Decker. In 1948 the Cody chapter of the American Legion offered a reward for the "return" of the body, so the Denver chapter mounted a guard over the grave until a deeper shaft could be blasted into the rock.

Philosophy

As a frontier scout, Cody respected Native Americans and supported their rights. He employed many Native Americans, as he thought his show offered them good pay with a chance to improve their lives. He described them as "the former foe, present friend, the American", and once said, "Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government."

Cody supported the rights of women. He said, "What we want to do is give women even more liberty than they have. Let them do any kind of work they see fit, and if they do it as well as men, give them the same pay."

In his shows, the Indians were usually depicted attacking stagecoaches and wagon trains, from which they were driven off by cowboys and soldiers. Many family members traveled with the men, and Cody encouraged the wives and children of his Indian performers to set up camp – as they would in their homelands – as part of the show. He wanted the paying public to see the human side of the "fierce warriors"; that they had families like any other, and had their own distinct cultures.

Cody was known as a conservationist who spoke out against hide-hunting and pushed for a hunting season.

Freemason

Cody was active in the concordant bodies of Freemasonry, fraternal organization, being initiated in Platte Valley Lodge No. 32, North Platte, Nebraska, on March 5, 1870. He received his 2nd and 3rd degrees on April 2, 1870, and January 10, 1871, respectively. He became a Knight Templar in 1889 and received his 32nd degree in Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in 1894.

Legacy and honors

In 1872, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for service as a civilian scout to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, for "gallantry in action" at Loupe Forke, Platte River, Nebraska. In 1917, the U.S. Army—after Congress revised the standards for the award—removed from the rolls 911 medals previously awarded either to civilians, or for actions that would not warrant a Medal of Honor under the new higher standards. Among those revoked was Cody's. In 1977, Congress began reviewing numerous cases; it reinstated the medals for Cody and four other civilian scouts on June 12, 1989.

Cody was honored by two U.S. postage stamps. One was a 15¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Buffalo Bill's Wild West and the Progressive Image of American Indians is a collaborative project of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of History, with the assistance from the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This digital history project contains letters, official programs, newspaper reports, posters, and photographs. The project highlights the social and cultural forces that shaped how American Indians were defined, debated, contested, and controlled in this period. This project was based on the Papers of William F. Cody project of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center.

The National Museum of American History's Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian Institution preserves and displays Gertrude Käsebier's photographs of the Wild West shows. Michelle Delaney has published Buffalo Bill's Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier.

Some Oglala Lakota people carry on family show business traditions from ancestors who were Carlisle Indian School alumni and worked for Buffalo Bill and other Wild West shows. Several national projects celebrate Wild Westers and Wild Westing. Wild Westers still perform in movies, powwows, pageants and rodeos.

The Buffalo Bills, an NFL team based in Buffalo, New York, were named after the entertainer. Other early football teams (such as the Buffalo Bills of the AAFC) used the nickname, solely for name recognition, as Bill Cody had no special connection with the New York State city.

Representation in other media

Buffalo Bill has been portrayed in many literary, musical, and theatrical works, movies, and television shows, especially during the 1950s and 1960s, when Westerns were most popular. For example:
Film

    With Buffalo Bill on the U. P. Trail, 1926, a silent film starring Roy Stewart.

    1944 film, Buffalo Bill starring Joel McCrea and Maureen O'Hara, a Hollywood account of Cody's life.

    Pony Express, 1953, an entirely fictional account of the creation of the Pony Express with Charlton Heston cast as Buffalo Bill.

    Robert Altman's feature film, Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976) portrays Cody and his Wild West show.

    The 2004 film Hidalgo, starring Viggo Mortensen as Frank Hopkins, features Buffalo Bill Cody as portrayed by J. K. Simmons as well as 
    Annie Oakley (Elizabeth Berridge), a famed sharpshooter who was a star featured in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Literature

    E. E. Cummings uses Buffalo Bill as an image of life and vibrancy in a poem, commonly known by its first two lines: "Buffalo Bill's / defunct". 
    In Poetry, edited by J. Hunter, it is titled "portrait". 

    Fantasy author Mercedes Lackey uses Cody as a character in her novel From a High Tower, in her Elemental Masters series.

    Dr. Seuss used Cody's nickname "Buffalo Bill" as one of twenty-three silly alternative names for one of Mrs. McCave's sons, all named 
    "Dave" in the short story "Too Many Daves", from The Sneetches and Other Stories.
 

Jesse Evans (1853 – ????) was an outlaw and gunman of the Old West, and leader of the Jesse Evans Gang. He has received some attention due to his disappearance in 1882, after which he was never heard from again

Early outlaw life

Jesse J. Evans was believed to have been born in Missouri, although some historians believe he was born in Texas. He was half-Cherokee, and a graduate of Washington and Lee College in Virginia. It is unknown as to what caused Evans to go from a promising life to that of an outlaw. It is possibly due to a poor influence within his family structure, as he was arrested with both his mother and his father on June 26, 1871, in Elk City, Kansas, for passing counterfeit money. He was released shortly thereafter, and by 1872 he was in the New Mexico Territory.

He began working as a cowboy, employed by several ranches, to include that of John Chisum. After he ended his employment with Chisum, Evans ventured to both Las Cruces and La Mesilla, New Mexico, where he became associated with John Kinney. At the time, Kinney was leading one of the more well known gangs of the New Mexico Territory, called the John Kinney Gang. Evans joined the gang, and over time he and Kinney became close. On the night of December 31, 1875, Kinney, Evans, Pony Diehl, and Jim McDaniels went into Las Cruces. While there the gang members became involved in a disagreement and later a brawl with soldiers of the US Cavalry stationed at Fort Seldon. The outlaws lost the fight, and left, only to return and open fire on the saloon, killing two soldiers and one civilian, and wounding another two soldiers and one civilian.

Forming of his own gang

Kinney had been badly wounded in the earlier fight, and needed to heal. A short time after that night, while Kinney was still healing, Evans and gang member Samual Blanton shot and killed Quirino Fletcher in Las Cruces, for reasons still not known. There was also alleged to have been a third shooter present, a man named Morris, but that is unconfirmed. Evans stood trial for the murder, but was somehow acquitted. It was around this time that Evans broke away from the Kinney Gang to form his own. Several of the Kinney Gang members followed him as members of his new gang, to include Billy Morton, Frank Baker, Jim McDaniels, Buffalo Bill Spawn, Dolly Graham, Tom Hill, Bob Martin, Nicholas Provencio, and Manuel Segovia. Although usually referred as the "Jesse Evans Gang", they referred to themselves as "The Boys". They became involved in numerous acts of robbery and cattle rustling between 1875

Lincoln County War and after

In late 1877 the gang was hired by the "Murphy-Dolan faction" prior to and eventually during the Lincoln County War, to face off against Billy the Kid and his faction. Despite the fame that Billy the Kid would eventually receive due to the war, by many accounts Evans was the most feared of the two factions. Evans and members of his gang harassed rancher John Tunstall, and on February 18, 1878, Evans, Frank Baker, William Morton, and Tom Hill murdered Tunstall, which ignited the Lincoln County War.

Evans would figure prominently into the range war, often taking the lead on operations against the Lincoln County Regulators. His role is often downplayed, but in most documented accounts, Evans was at the front. In later letters written by Billy the Kid to Governor Lew Wallace, Evans was mentioned, and Billy Bonney even stated in one that he feared being assassinated by Evans. William Morton and Frank Baker were tracked down by the Regulators and killed for the Tunstall murder, and on that same day Evans and Tom Hill were rustling sheep during which Hill was killed and Evans was wounded by the sheep farmer. On April 29, 1878, Evans led a posse that killed Regulator Frank McNab and badly wounded Regulator Ab Saunders.

On April 30, 1878, Seven Rivers Warriors members Tom Green, Charles Marshall, Jim Patterson and John Galvin were killed in Lincoln, and although the Regulators were blamed, that was never proven, and there were feuds going inside the Seven Rivers Warriors at that time. The Regulators reacted by tracking down Manuel Segovia, the Seven Rivers gang member believed responsible for the death of McNab, killing him. Starting on July 15, 1878, Evans and his gang were a main factor in the Battle of Lincoln, which ended in a draw with three dead on the Regulators side, and three dead on the Murphy-Dolan side, along with several wounded.

After the Lincoln War ended, Evans and gang member Billy Campbell killed an attorney named Huston Chapman on February 18, 1879, who was the lawyer hired by Susan McSween on behalf of her husband Alexander McSween, who was killed during the Battle of Lincoln, and the gang was again on the run from lawmen. Texas Rangers caught up to them near Presidio del Norte, in Mexico. In the ensuing gunbattle, Evans shot and killed Ranger George Bingham, while gang member John Gross was wounded by the Rangers, and gang member George Davis was shot and killed by Rangers D.T. Carson and Ed Sieker. Ranger Carson was also shot and wounded. The gang had already lost several other members, killed prior to Presidio while Rangers were pursuing them, to include Dolly Graham. Evans was arrested, tried and sentenced to prison. However, he escaped while on work detail one day, but was recaptured a few months later. Sent to Huntsville Prison, he was released in 1882 and was never seen or heard from again. Where he went and what happened to him is a mystery.
 
Mystery solved?

In 1948, probate investigator William V. Morrison was sent from St. Louis, Missouri to Florida to investigate the case of an elderly man attempting to claim his recently deceased brother's land. The deceased man had been Jesse Evans' brother. The man's name was Joe Hines, but during Morrison's interview of Hines, the latter allegedly revealed that he was really Jesse Evans and discussed his part in the Lincoln County War, and his association with Billy the Kid. He revealed that of those involved in that range war, three, including himself, remained alive; the other two were Jim McDaniels (an Evans Gang member) and Billy the Kid. Hines claimed that Billy the Kid was going by the name of Ollie P. Roberts, living in Hico, Texas. With some coaxing, Roberts did talk to Morrison, but eventually his story was discredited by almost all historians. Hines won his case, and was granted his brother's land in Florida. It has been asserted that Hines in fact had been Jesse Evans, but no one has been able to explain why, if Roberts was not Billy the Kid, Hines/Evans pointed Morrison in his direction. Morrison also attempted to track down former Evans Gang member Jim McDaniels, locating him in Round Rock, Texas. McDaniels, along with Severo Gallegos, Martile Able, Jose Montoya, and Bill and Sam Jones, all of whom had known Billy the Kid, signed affidavits claiming to verify that Roberts was in fact Billy the Kid.