Distinctly Montana Magazine

29 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m As Bill smoked cigars and talked with Louisa, he prepared to greet the crowds at Great Falls in June, go up into Canada and come back down to Kalispell in July. Then the most sustained sequence of Montana shows would begin in early August, with shows daily in Missoula, Helena, Lewistown and Billings, and with two in Butte. At each stop, he would parade through the town, clad in his trademark duds. In every case, there were plen- ty of folks gathered to see him, but he could not have helped but notice that Billings or Missoula or even the great city of Butte, on their best day, couldn't exactly muster a throng, such as massed to see him in London or Paris. Cody never came to Montana with his original Buffalo Bill's Wild West. The first year one of his shows played in Butte was 1908. On that occasion, he rode with the Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Far East, commonly known as the "Two Bills Show." Since then, the Wild West had gone bankrupt, and a series of deals with rivals and competitors reduced him to ap- pearing with the Sells Floto Circus as "the far-famed Col. Wm. F. Cody, Himself." Cody wasn't too impressed with the Sells Floto Circus, com- plaining of their dirty tents and mouse-eaten, damp ropes. Yet, buffered from the conditions of the circus by his private train car and private valet, he was significantly more bothered by a bad deal he'd made. Henry Tammen, the deviously ruthless owner of the Sells-Floto Circus, had loaned Cody $20,000. The fine wording of that agreement apparently gave Tammen ownership over the Wild West, as well as Buffalo Bill's name and image. Cody had found out that he was about to be absorbed by the Sells Floto Circus from a Denver newspaper, the Evening Post, which Tammen owned. Why Cody allowed himself to be involved in such a terrible deal is puzzling, but he was in tremendous debt. He needed the $20,000 badly and probably wasn't considering what it may cost him—namely, the rights to Buffalo Bill. The details of the deal were that Bill was to receive $100 a day, which was no mean wage for the time but far less than the $3,000 a day Tammen drew. Cody was also to have 40% of the profits over Tammen's $3,000, but rarely did any single show's box office ex- ceed that threshold. The next year, Cody demanded that they re- negotiate that part of the contract, but somehow Tammen fleeced him again. During the next season, which did not tour Montana, Cody would only make 40% of profits over $3,100. Given the freak rainstorms and low ticket sales of what author Robert A. Carter called a "nightmare season," Cody didn't make much more than his per diem. Cody threatened to kill Tammen. That would be the last season Cody would ride for the Sells Floto Circus. M O N TA N A WA S A P L AC E T H AT, LIKE THE TOWN NAMED AFTER HIM IN WYOMING, WAS STILL AT LEAST A LITTLE WILD. MONTANA, TOO, WAS STILL SPARSELY ELECTRIFIED, AND RESEMBLED MORE THAN MOST A PICTURE POSTCARD OF A VANISHING ERA. Marilynn Dwyer Mason Summer on the Lake BEar-themed Wall art by Montana artist homeward bound

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