May 19, 1883

William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody opened Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in Omaha, Nebraska

launching a genre of outdoor entertainment that thrived for three decades and survived, in fits and starts, for almost three more

“Westward the course of empire takes its way.”

Annie Oakley broke ground when she and her husband and manager, Frank Butler, joined Buffalo Bill early in 1885

Lillian Smith toured as a teenager with Buffalo Bill, disappeared for a while from public view, then resurfaced in Mexican Joe’s and other Wild Wests as “Princess Wenona, the Indian Girl Shot.”