Cody William

Buffalo Bill Cody Visits the Town Cody in Northwestern Wyoming, Super Content

Cody had hoped that Foote could have accompanied Wyoming Republican Governor William A. Richards (1849-1912) and other visitors to Cody. The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, a subsidiary of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, ran through Red Lodge, Montana, approximately sixty-five miles north of Cody. There, Charles Trego (1856-1925), Cody's friend and foreman of both his ranch in Nebraska and his ranch outside Cody, met the party and took them to Cody. The group toured progress the Shoshone Company had made on what Cody called the "ditch," hunted game, and spent time at the DeMaris Hot Springs nearby. He insisted that the hot springs would do Foote's partner Edward S. Stokes "a world of good." Cody also informed Foote that he hoped to spend Christmas 1896 at Foote's Hoffman Hotel in New York City.

WILLIAM F. "BUFFALO BILL" CODY, Autograph Letter Signed, to Eleazur V. Foote, [November 25, 1896], Hot Springs, Wyoming. 2 pp., 8.5" x 11". With envelope addressed by Cody. Expected folds; separated on center fold; tear on another fold; otherwise good.

Complete Transcript

Hot Springs, Wyo.

My Dear Foote

You favor recd. have missed you very much, for I am sure you would have enjoyed this trip. Our party of twelve headed by Gov Richards & boys started from Omaha on the 6th was met at Red Lodge by Trego the foreman of my transportation Co. with a six horse covered stagecoach, mountain buckboards &.c. We came through to Cody on stage time. No accident weather fine rested one day at Cody painted the Town a little, then went over the Entire ditch & works, then went on a hunt camping in the mountains among the pines, got Just all the game we wanted and could pack out. Got back to Cody had two Balls in honor of the Governor, some people coming fifty miles in buckboards. The Govr and four of the party left, for the East 22d the rest of the party are here and will stay until I go, which will be about the 10th of Dec. I want to be at the Hoffman Christmas. two days ago we came to these springs, & I must say they are the most wonderful waters in the world. They simply boil every ache & pain out of ones body & limbs, quiets the nerves, so that last night I slept fourteen sollid hours. Something I never done before & wish you were here. These waters would do Stokes a world of good. I hope he will come here sometime.

Regards to all.

Your friend W. F. Cody

Historical Background

In 1895, Buffalo Bill Cody, George W. T. Beck (1856-1943), and other investors founded the Shoshone Land and Irrigation Company to build a canal to irrigate the Big Horn Basin in northwestern Wyoming, and to found the city of Cody. They operated under the provisions of the Carey Act, passed by Congress in 1894 at the request of Wyoming Senator Joseph Carey, that allowed private companies to erect irrigation systems and profit from the sales of the water to encourage settlement. They originally planned to irrigate more than 400,000 acres along the Stinking Water (now Shoshone) River, but soon scaled back to the more manageable goal of 25,000 acres.

Cody attracted a group of businessmen from Buffalo, New York, to invest in the project, but Cody and Beck soon had to reach out to other investors, including Nathan Salsbury (1846-1902), who was producer and manager of Buffalo Bill's Wild West, the traveling show that made Cody famous, and Phoebe Hearst, mother of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.


William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody (1846-1917) was born in Iowa Territory, lived with his family for a few years in Ontario, then lived in Kansas Territory. After his father was attacked and mortally wounded for delivering an antislavery speech, Cody began working, and he became a rider for the Pony Express at age 15. He served as a teamster in the 7th Kansas Cavalry during the latter half of the Civil War. In 1866, he married Louisa Frederici, and they had four children. That same year, he reunited with Wild Bill Hickok and joined him as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars. In 1867 and 1868, he took a leave of absence to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo meat. He is purported to have killed more than 4,200 buffalo in eighteen months, earning him the nickname "Buffalo Bill" Back as an army scout in 1868, he rode as a dispatch courier among five forts, covering 350 miles in 58 hours through hostile territory, including the last 35 miles on foot. He served as Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry Regiment and later for the 3rd Cavalry Regiment. In 1869 and the early 1870s, Ned Buntline wrote sensationalized stories about Cody's adventures that made Cody nationally famous. For his service in the Indian Wars, he received the Medal of Honor in 1872 (revoked in 1917, shortly after his death, when Congress authorized the War Department to revoke hundreds of medals, including all civilian ones, and controversially restored in 1989). Cody founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" touring show in 1883, and took his large company on annual tours of the United States. With his profits, he purchased a 4,000-acre ranch near North Platte, Nebraska, in 1886. Beginning in 1887, he expanded to tours of Great Britain and continental Europe. He also established an independent exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, the organizers of which had rejected his request to participate in the fair. Cody continued to support the town of Cody, Wyoming, building a hotel there in 1902 and another in 1905. He also established a dude ranch nearby, which also served as a base for hunting expeditions. He filed for divorce in 1904, but the court rejected his petition in 1905, and he and his wife reconciled in 1910.

Elizur/Eleazur Valentine Foote (1855-[1945?]) was born in New York City to Joel West Foote (1820-1864) and Catherine Matilda Valentine. He became the treasurer of the corporation that purchased the Hoffman House hotel and café in New York City in 1894. One of his partners was Edward S. Stokes, who had served four years in prison for killing fellow financier Jim Fisk Jr. over the songstress Josephine Mansfield in 1872. The Hoffman House was built in 1864, and the political powerbrokers of Tammany Hall considered it their unofficial headquarters. Grover Cleveland lived there when he was elected to his second term as president. William M. "Boss" Tweed lived at the hotel, as did William F. Cody for extended periods when he was in New York City. The 1907 Panic harmed the hotel, and it closed in 1915. Foote never married. In the 1910 and 1930 censuses, he was listed as a real estate broker, living in New York City.


This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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