TRIPS INTO HISTORY - Page 87 of 91 - Historic Sites in the U.S. and Travel Ideas

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Goes to Paris

One of the highlights of Buffalo Bills Wild West was when the troupe performed in Paris France. After their fascinating success touring the United States, the group sailed to Europe and played a number of cities on the continent.Their original performances in England during 1887 paved the way for a much larger tour which included a six month engagement in France. The world was ready and eager to see these old west shows.

The tour in England had coincided with Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee celebration and the Buffalo Bill Cody planned his French tour to take place during the Exposition Universelle in Paris during 1889. The Paris Exposition commemorated the one hundred year anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille, a somewhat similar event to the one hundred year anniversary of the United States. William Cody Buffalo Bill gained the reputation of being an excellent showman. This was not only for his performances in the arena but equally so for his skill in building publicity. Cody’s worldwide reputation along with an advertising blitz created an overwhelming response from the French. The opening performance alone drew some 10,000 spectators including Sadi Carnot, the French President. The French newspapers were filled every day with accounts of the Wild West and its performers. The Indians, just as in England, had attracted huge attention. As if their presence in France wasn’t enough, the French press put out large stories of Cody’s Indians climbing the famed Eiffel Tower.The public domain photo below shows the Eiffel Tower under construction in July 1888.

The French engineer Gustave Eiffel won a contest to build a gigantic tower as the spectacular centerpiece of the 1889 Exposition Universelle and Cody’s Indians surely would have been the first Native Americans to ascend this symbolic tower. The very act of touching the Indians became a popular pastime for young French couple in particular who thought such contact would assure fertility. French children were so thrilled by the Wild West and it’s authentic American Indians that they set up their own wild west encampment in the Bois de Boulogne. Everything in the Wild West show was intriguing to the Parisians of the time including the wild west buffalo itself.

All throughout the summer of 1889, as Buffalo Bill performed during the Exposition Universelle, it almost appeared that the Wild West was the main event in Paris rather than the Exposition itself. One side note to the Wild West’s tour of France involved Buffalo Cody trying to present a special gift to the French president. The gift was a nine foot tall lamp with a preserved bison head at the top. The lamp shade was scarlet red. While the gesture was surely meant as a compliment, the French president declined the offer. It’s not clear what happened to the intended gift after that.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, featuring among others, the famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley and a full contingent of Native Americans, thrilled Parisians at the same time that Thomas Edison, come to promote his new talking phonograph in Europe. Clearly the excitement of the American frontier coupled with advances in science and engineering, such as Eiffels Tower and Edison’s inventions made the Exposition Universelle a showcase of the old and new.

Another historical side note regarding the Wild West’s performances in Paris involved that of Annie Oakley.Two years prior in 1887, Oakley had quit the show amid poor relations with the show’s other female sharpshooter, Lillian Smith, almost ten years younger than Oakley. By 1889 Smith had also quit the Wild West and Buffalo Bill was successful in persuading Annie Oakley to rejoin his group for their upcoming tour of Europe.

After the Wild West performed in Paris they moved through southern France and then onto Spain for sold out performances there. The Buffalo Bill show and all it’s advance publicity headed south.

The story of American old west frontier history has proved to be a lasting attraction. Today, in the 21st century, visitors to the Disneyland Paris show can see a sort of reenactment of what Buffalo Bill Cody brought to France over one hundred years ago. Now, twice daily, a man by the name of Trent Vance (Vance plays Buffalo Bill Cody) heads up a cast of up to 70 cowboys, Indians, bison, longhorn cattle, horses and a donkey in a 90-minute dinner performance portrayed just like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows. The show includes chuckwagon scenes, a buffalo chase, rodeo games and a stagecoach attack along with other frontier acts. Named appropriately, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, there are two performances nightly and includes dinner. Disney’s knowledge of Buffalo Bill Cody goes all the way back to Walt Disney himself, who saw Buffalo Bill in a parade that came through Disney’s boyhood hometown of Marceline, Missouri.

Aside from attending the new Wild West at Disneyland in Paris, many artifacts and records can be seen at two Buffalo Bill Cody museums in the United States. One is the Buffal Bill Historical Center in Cody Wyoming just east of Yellowstone National Park. The other is at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Golden Colorado. The Buffalo Bill Museum’s Golden Colorado exhibits include memorabilia from Buffalo Bill’s life and Wild West shows, Native American artifacts, a large collection of antique firearms and other Old West artifacts. Golden Colorado is also the grave site of William Cody.

The Amazing Place Called Lily Dale New York

A summer vacation to western New York is popular to many. It’s a beautiful part of our country and the lakes, hills and streams make for a lot of family fun. In the extreme western part of New York state is Chautauqua county which is very well known among tourists for beautiful Chautauqua Lake.

Tucked away in this picturesque corner of the state is the town of Lily Dale, a popular stop for close to one hundred years. Lily Dale is a very small settlement located in the town of Pomfret which is on the east side of Cassadaga Lake. This is about 50 miles southwest of Buffalo, about ten miles inland from Lake Erie. The closest main highway is Interstate-90. Lily Dale is also about 50 miles northeast of Erie PA. Traveling there from Buffalo you would exit Interstate-90 using the Hwy-60 exit in Dunkirk NY.

Lily Dale might be considered the center of today’s modern spiritualist movement. Estimates today put Lily Dale’s visitor count to over 20,000 annually. The site of Lily Dale is also the home of many registered mediums and guest lecturers appear frequently. There are now dozens of mediums who hand a shingle in front of their home to promote their services. The Lily Dale Assembly acts as the governing body in registering mediums and those members are certified by the Assembly as being competent and upright.

The history of this hamlet is very interesting. Lily Dale became a hot spot for Spiritualism in 1916 when members relocated the home of its American founders, Kate and Margaret Fox, the celebrated Fox sisters, to the site after it was bought for a reported $27,000.

In the year 1848 at their home in Hydesville New York, the Fox sisters used “rappings” to convince their much older sister and neighbors that they were communicating with the spirit world. After this amazing occurrence, the oldest sister

took over and essentially managed their careers for many years. All of the sisters went on to be world renown mediums. Under the older sisters guidance, the Fox sisters made appearances in many cities demonstrating their spiritualist powers. The sisters received a good amount of publicity in the press. Some newspaper stories declared them frauds while others seemed to verify these sensational demonstrations.

Very similar as with today, there are thousands of people working to unmask the art of spiritualism as being a fraud, in his lifetime the famous Harry Houdini was one of them, and there are thousands who work to document the movement’s credibility. It’s interesting to understand that, even as today, there were many staunch believers in spiritualism during the era of the Fox sisters. This included prominent people such as Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the writer and adventurer, Horace Greeley. By the mid 1850s, there were thought to be more than one million professing Spiritualists in the United States alone. During the peak years of Spiritualism from the 1840’s to about the 1920’s, membership in the United States and Europe combined was said to be than eight million. Most of the followers during that time seemed to be from the middle and upper classes. During this time Kate and Margaret Fox gave hundreds of seances for true believers as well as for the many people “investigating” the phenomena. It appears that Kate Fox in particular was considered to be a powerful medium. She was able to produce not only spirit raps, but “spirit lights, direct writing, and the appearance of materialized hands,” as well as the movement of all types of objects at a distance.

Over the years there were many attempts to prove that what the Fox sisters were doing was fraudulent. Allegedly it was proven that the sounds heard indeed were emanating from the sisters toe joints. So called “experts” concluded that what was being done was a hoax and the sisters did reportedly make a confession as such. One sister recanted the confession about a year later. Regardless of the fact that there may certainly have been hoaxes put forward over the years and theories uncovered, there remains much that has not been explained about the work of the medium. The story of the Fox sisters is quite fascinating and offers perhaps the best glimpse of the phenomena during the 1800’s. There are several books written on the subject.

An interesting question was why the private site of Lily Dale was chosen as the place to relocate the home of the Fox sisters in 1916?

In seems that in 1871 a group of Spiritualists who eventually became the Lily Dale Assembly started having summer meetings on Cassadaga Lake. As time went by they constructed a good many cottages and other structures such as a hotel, auditorium and outdoor amphitheaters. As years progressed, Lily Dale’s popularity and name continued to grow with all those connected to the Spiritualist movement. Many famous names over the years visited Lily Dale including Susan B. Anthony, Harry Houdini and a few Hollywood celebrities. In 1916, while Lily Dale had a reputation as a meeting place for Spiritualists, it took on greater significance and became a type of mecca when the childhood home of Kate and Margaret Fox was literally moved there from Hydesville New York. Most followers at the time believed that Lily Dale would be the perfect site to further their movement.

Today, Lily Dale is the site of spiritualist workshops, classes and special events held each summer. Lily Dale hosts many modern day lecturers as guests including Dr. Wayne Dyer, Depak Chopra, John Edwards and others. It’s an annual pilgrimage site for thousands of spiritualists and people desiring to explore and learn more about the subject. Where Spiritualism was once a cohesive movement through periodicals and formal meetings, today it is practiced mostly through various Spiritualist churches in both the United States and United Kingdom.

Lily Dale is an interesting place with quite an interesting history and you may just wish to visit there when your summer vacation or travel plans take you near this part of New York state. (Photos and images in public domain)

A Visit to Historic Bisbee Arizona and a Story of Mass Deportation

Bisbee Arizona is not a town that people casually pass by. Many might say it’s quite a ways away from most things but I assure you that Bisbee is a terrific and interesting place to visit. Bisbee is located in one of those parts of Arizona that is filled with history. The legendary old west town of Tombstone is only a short drive away.

One remarkable thing about Bisbee was that while being in a remote area of Arizona, about eight miles from the Mexican border, the town was a thriving metropolis during the early years of the 20th century. Streetcars, opera houses, theaters, amateur baseball teams along with several stock exchanges are what a traveler to this town would have seen. Bisbee AZ was so popular during this era that noted stage and silent film celebrities such as Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, pictured below, traveled there to perform.

The business of Bisbee Arizona was all about mining and where there’s mining there’s money and with money came the people. Bisbee was founded in 1880 as a copper, gold and silver mining settlement. The town derived it’s name from Judge DeWitt Bisbee. Judge Bisbee was a financial backer of the big Copper Queen mine. Many people today even refer to Bisbee as the Copper Queen City.

One of the most newsworthy events that occurred in Bisbee AZ was a result of labor and political atmosphere of the early 1900’s. The industrial revolution that began after the Civil War ushered in a very large number of immigrants from all over the globe. Jobs were to be had in America and peoples from Europe and just about anywhere else emigrated to North America seeking work and a new life. Industrialization also ushered in the labor unions. During the latter part of the 1800’s, federal labor regulations were almost non existent. This included issues such as working hours and child labor utilization. To be sure, there was many things that attracted laborers to unions.

As a result, there were many strikes in these years, some of which were quite violent and brought in the military and local militia. Two highly publicized and violent strikes were those against the Pullman Company in Chicago and the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company in Chicago which resulted in the Haymarket Riots. During the Haymarket Affair a policeman was shot and killed during the melee and as a result there were criminal convictions of union organizers and there were several hangings afterward.

Labor unrest also spread to the mines all the way from West Virginia to the western states. What occurred in Bisbee AZ in July 1917 was a culmination of general labor unrest combined with the United States buildup in anticipation of entering World War I. The Phelps Dodge Corporation was active in Bisbee with a number of copper mines. Mining conditions in the region were difficult in regards to safety, pay and general living conditions. During the winter of 1915–16, a successful and bitter four-month strike in the Clifton-Morenci district resulted in unionization among miners. At the same time members of Bisbee’s merchant group and non miners were organizing their own groups to oppose the quick growing unionism. The most aggressive union working to enlist mine workers was the IWW. This was the International Workers of the World. The IWW in Bisbee signed up about 1,000 workers. Their target were the large Phelps Dodge operations. Bisbee Arizona had about 8,000 total residents in 1917.

In May 1917, the union presented a long list of demands to Phelps Dodge.IWW Local 800 presented a list of demands to Phelps Dodge. Among the demands were and end to physical examinations, at least two workers on each drilling machine, two men working the ore elevators, an end to blasting while workers were inside the mines, an end to the bonus system, no more assignment of construction work to miners replacement as well as some wage issues. As was somewhat customary during this era, Phelps Dodge refused to negotiate.

The IWW called it’s strike for June 26, 1917 and about 1,000 miners walked off the job. This was also joined by miners working on other mines and resulted in about 3,000 miners on strike. This obviously decimated the local economy and although there was no violence at first, the sheriff requested federal troops to intervene and end the strike. The atmosphere was influenced by the nearing of America’s entrance into the war in Europe and the local authorities framed their request for troops with the accusation that the strike was part of a German and anti-American plot. The photo below was taken during the Bisbee AZ strikes.

What led up to the larger trouble to come in Bisbee actually occurred a bit earlier in Jerome Arizona as a result of strikes there. Local authorities and a group representing mining interest ejected about 100 miners, put them in jail and later deported over sixty of them on a train to Needles California. Phelps Dodge learned of what happened in Jerome and feeling it was a success for the mine owners, organized, along with local authorities, a deputized posse of some 2,000 men from Bisbee and nearby Douglas Arizona. On July 12, 1917, over 2,000 deputized men swept through the entire town of Bisbee and arrested some 2,000 men accused of everything from disturbing the peace to treason. The arrested men were told they would be freed to go back to work if they denounced the IWW union. About seven hundred did and the remainder were eventually put into twenty three railroad cattle cars. The train went eastward and ended up a bit past Columbus New Mexico. On the journey, while the train stopped for water, machine guns and posse members stood guard. It was also reported afterward that executives from Phelps Dodge took over the telephone and telegraph system in Bisbee to prevent news of the deportation from getting out. The deportees were escorted by troops to outside of Columbus New Mexico where they were maintained by the Government (War Department) until the middle of September. The incarceration lasted some three months. The photo below is of an IWW strike in New Yor City in 1914.

Interestingly enough, the news reporting of the forced deportation incident did not raise public ire. Most stories carried by newspapers editorialized that the workers must have been very unruly for the deportation to take place. By and large, the reporting of the time was in favor of the mine owners. Some stories suggested that the miners were fortunate they weren’t sent to prison. Probably the most noteworthy reaction was the statement uttered by former President Teddy Roosevelt who said “no human being in his senses doubts that the men deported from Bisbee were bent on destruction and murder.” I would have to conclude that the statement made by Roosevelt was colored by the events of the time, namely the warfare going on in Europe. What began as a labor dispute and work stoppage at the Phelps Dodge mines in Bisbee turned into one of the largest vigilante action against union members ever undertaken in the United States.

The Army census data concerning the Bisbee deportation which was collected shows that of those workers deported, 199 were native-born Americans, 468 were citizens, 472 were registered under the selective-draft law, and 433 were married. Of the foreign-born, over twenty nationalities were represented, including 141 British, 82 Serbians, and 179 Slavs. Surprisingly, based on the accusations made by the local Bisbee authorities, Germans and Austro-Hungarians (other than Slavs) were comparatively few.