Buffalo Bill, Wyoming and the Coe Family May 18, 2011

The exhibition is inspired by Planting Fields original owner, William Robertson Coe. Mr. Coe first visited Wyoming in 1908 to hunt big game. It was there that he met the internationally famous William Frederick Cody, known as "Buffalo Bill." So began Coe's passion for the West. In 1910 he bought one of Buffalo Bill's ranches, the Carter Ranch on Lake Irma, not far from the town of Cody which Buffalo Bill had founded in 1895. The Coe family regularly spent summers in the cool Wyoming mountains through the 1940s, where Mr. Coe eventually owned over 200,000 acres. Mr. Coe was a founding trustee of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming, and had accumulated a large and important collection of archival material concerning westward expansion, which he gave to Yale University over several years beginning in 1942. The exhibition explores the history of Buffalo Bill with several loans from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, including examples of Buffalo Bill's costumes that he wore in his Wild West show, his fancy gauntlets, and his rifle. On display are artifacts that belonged to Annie Oakley, the sharpshooting star of the show, along with paintings and sculpture of the period. Buffalo Bill's history is illustrated by big game trophies of buffalo, deer and elk that he was famous for hunting early in his career.