Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Many of you have heard of Buffalo Bill Cody, the young man born near LeClaire, Iowa, who went on to be an army scout, provider of buffalo meat for the railroads and later became a showman with his wild west show.

You probably have heard less of Gordon W. Lillie who, as a young man, went to live with the Pawnee Indian tribe, served as an Indian agent, later appeared with Cody in his show with Pawnee Indians and then had his own show which he later merged with Cody’s. He was by then known as Pawnee Bill.

My mother was orphaned before she was three with her mother dying in February 1926 and her father in November of that year. They were subsistence farmers near Medford, Oklahoma. My mother was then raised by her aunt on a farm near Pawnee and that farm was adjacent to the farm Pawnee Bill built for his retirement.

My mother never thought much of Pawnee Bill because his cattle or bison were always getting on their farm. And often that meant that a man called Mexican Joe, Pawnee Bill’s right hand man, would come over to retrieve them. But she never thought much of Pawnee Bill.

I recently read “Pawnee Bill, A Biography of Major Gordon W. Lillie” which portrays Lille as a young man who grew up to become a smart showman and businessman. He was a man who respected Cody and bailed him out on more than one occasion.

He ran his show for a number of years and was vice-president of a bank he helped found in Pawnee. In fact, he helped found the town itself.

A few years ago, Mary and I went to Pawnee to see if we could find the place my mother was raised. I had a few pictures of a weather-beaten house and had been there as a youngster.

We didn’t find the homestead because we couldn’t find anybody who had a plat from the 1920s that would have showed where my mother’s family farm was. We did find a Pawnee Bill Museum which is on his farm and his farmhouse was there. We also found my mother’s parents gravestones in a prairie cemetery near Medford.

To read the book about Lillie paints quite a different picture about him. Now, my mother would have been a teenager back then and Lillie was mostly retired and in his 60s when she was born in 1923. So many of her perceptions about Lillie might have been from those who raised her.

After he got his show going, he was quite successful. He performed his show all around the United States and Europe, much as Cody did. But Pawnee Bill added new features to the show that made it more successful.

John Ringling (remember Ringling Brothers Circus?) bought Cody’s show when Cody was in financial trouble and later Lillie bought Ringling’s share after he died. The two shows combined for a while.

At one point Ringling and the wild west shows shared a winter facility in Baraboo, Wisconsin and Lillie was offered the whole facility when Ringling needed a bigger building. There is now a circus museum in Baraboo.

Cody, in need of some quick money, later sold his part of the show and much of the equipment without telling Lillie. Even so Lillie didn’t dump on Cody as he might have.

Lillie raised cattle and maintained a bison herd much the rest of his life on his ranch at Pawnee. When he died in 1942, he was approaching his 82nd birthday. He gave his home, ponies and buffalo to the Boy Scouts of America.

I have a few more things to track down but it sure has been interesting so far!