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William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody
of Custer’s Last Stand. In this climax, some Lakota played a part in the play, the same Lakota who fought in the battle. The show was a huge success. It toured the country for three decades and played to crowds across Europe. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show also starred the sharpshooter Annie Oakley, Buck Taylor, and for one season Chief Sitting Bull. Cody even added a “Congress of Rough Riders of the World” the included lancers, Cossacks, and other Old World cavalrymen. The show also had cowboys, vaqueros, and Indians of the American West.
Cody may have been absorbed in his artificial fame of Buffalo Bill, but he still had a true reputation in the real Wild West. He was called back by the army in 1890 once more during the Indian uprisings associated with the Ghost Dance. He traveled to Wounded Knee after the massacre to help restore order. He came with some Indians from his troupe who proved effective peacemakers.
Cody lost all his money to weakness for bad investment schemes and mismanagement. Even the Wild West show itself was lost to creditors in the end. Cody died on January 10, 1917. He is buried in a tomb blasted from solid rock at the summit of Lookout Mountain near Denver, Colorado.