Some may have said: Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, William Randolph Hearst, or maybe Susan B. Anthony. Those are good guesses. The most famous American going into the 20th century was: William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody.

Question: How was a boy born in 1846 to a little-known family in the middle of America able to become so famous that royalty from around the world sent their condolences when he died? Answer: He showed the world the great American west.

His father, Isaac Cody, died in April 1857 when Bill was 11 years old. To help his family make ends meet, young Bill took a job delivering messages for a freight company near their home in the territory of Kansas. Cody then got a job as an unofficial scout for Johnston’s Army on an expedition to Utah. In 1860, at the age of 14, he took another messenger job with Russell, Majors, and Waddell, the company that set up and operated the Pony Express.

The American Civil War began in April 1860. In 1863 at the age of 17, Cody enlisted in the Union Army (7th Kansas Cavalry). He was a teamster and helped deliver supplies to forts on the western frontier (Wyoming). The Civil War ended in April 1865.

In 1867, the Kansas Pacific Railway was being built. Cody was granted a leave of absence from the army to become a buffalo hunter. It became his job to supply the railroad with meat for its construction workers. Some records say that Cody killed over 4,200 buffalo in the 18 months during 1867 and 1868. It is during this time that he earned the nickname: Buffalo Bill.

Cody was 23 in 1869. Ned Buntline, a writer, published a novel based on some of Cody’s adventures. It was called: Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen. Buntline and other writers later published other Buffalo Bill stories. Cody became famous.

Cody’s fame as Buffalo Bill only grew. In 1872, he started a career as a performer on a stage in Chicago. The co-stars of the show included Texas Jack Omohundro and Cody’s old friend, Wild Bill Hickok. Cody’s show was successful and toured for 10 years.

In 1883, Cody started a circus-type show called: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. This venture was also successful and included other famous personalities of the time like Annie Oakley, Calamity Jane, and Sitting Bull. Later, the show started to tour internationally. In 1887, Buffalo Bill’s show performed in the English cities of London, Birmingham, and Manchester. Even Queen Victoria attended a performance. In London alone there were over 300 performances and more than two million tickets sold.

Over the next 20 years Buffalo Bill shows performed in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Ukraine. America was still up-and-coming then. Attendees of Cody’s show included popes, kings, queens, princes, kaisers, and other notable people great and small.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West put on display a different kind of world to audiences in Europe. By the late 1890’s the American frontier was starting to change and fade away. Before “moving pictures” began, Buffalo Bill showed America to those that wanted to see.

In 1895, Cody helped with the founding of a town in northwestern Wyoming. It was called: Cody. He first visited the area in the early 1870s. It was close to Yellowstone Park. There were mountains, rivers, and wild game. It represented what Cody knew and loved. He started an 8000-acre cattle ranch and hosted VIPs from Europe and America.

Some have said that by 1900, Buffalo Bill Cody was the most famous celebrity on Earth. Still, Cody’s show business started to decline not long after that. Some think it was due to a train accident in North Carolina. It killed a lot of the show’s livestock and put the show temporarily out of business. Other’s blame marriage problems and bad press.

On January 10, 1917, Cody died from kidney failure at Denver. Before his death, he made arrangements with his family to be buried at one of his favorite places: Lookout Mountain near Golden, Colorado. Over 25,000 paid their respects to his coffin. Condolences came in from royalty and the rich and famous around the world.