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116-551: The Heart Mountain War Relocation Center , named after nearby Heart Mountain and located midway between the northwest Wyoming towns of Cody and Powell , was one of ten concentration camps used for the internment of Japanese Americans evicted during World War II from their local communities (including their homes, businesses, and college residencies) in the West Coast Exclusion Zone by

232-399: A Cheyenne warrior. In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska , Cody founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West , a circus-like attraction that toured annually. (Contrary to the popular misconception, the word Show was not a part of the title.) In 1886, Cody and Nate Salsbury, his theatrical manager, entered into partnership with Evelyn Booth (1860–1901), a big-game hunter and scion of

348-418: A hovercraft , allowing the slide to move easily down the very low slope. When the rockslide stopped, the carbon dioxide cooled and recombined with calcium oxide to form the cement-like carbonate rock now found in the fault zone. The consensus favors catastrophic sliding and calculations suggest that the front of the sliding mass may have advanced at a speed of over 100 miles per hour (161 km/h), meaning that

464-660: A touring show which traveled around the United States, Great Britain, and Continental Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West . Emilio Salgari , a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels. In December 1872, Cody traveled to Chicago to make his stage debut with his friend Texas Jack Omohundro in The Scouts of

580-513: A "Leave Clearance Form," better known as the loyalty questionnaire because of two controversial questions that tried to distinguish loyal and disloyal Japanese Americans. Question 27 asked whether men would be willing to serve in the armed forces, while Question 28 asked inmates to forswear all allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. Many, confused by the questionnaire's wording, fearing it was a trick and any answer would be misconstrued, or, offended by

696-416: A barracks based on the size of their families, they began making small improvements on their new "apartments," hanging bed sheets to create extra "rooms," and stuffing newspaper and rags into cracks in the shoddily constructed walls and floors to keep out dust and cold. Some inmates went so far as to order tools from Sears & Roebuck catalogs in order to make repairs. Each barracks unit contained one light,

812-555: A basement of ancient (more than 2.5 billion years old) granite when the area was covered by a large shallow tropical sea. Up until 50 million years ago, these rocks lay about 25 miles (40 kilometers) to the northwest, where the eastern Absaroka Range now stands. Between 75 and 50 million years ago, a period of mountain-building called the Laramide Orogeny caused uplift of the Beartooth Range and subsidence of

928-555: A distraction from the dullness of camp life. Knitting, sewing, and woodcarving were popular not only for entertainment, but because they allowed inmates to improve their dilapidated living conditions. Among children, Girl and Boy Scout programs flourished, as many Nisei had been members before internment. Heart Mountain's thirteen scout troops and two Cub Scout packs were the most of any of the ten camps. Scouts participated in normal scouting activities such as hiking, craft making, and swimming. In early 1943, camp officials began to administer

1044-533: A highly qualified status that treated them as valuable military assets without the designation or retirement benefits of officers. Nevertheless, they were treated as high-ranking military officials and had status of officers alongside their native American brethren. The brief argued for retroactive restoration of the Medal of Honor to Buffalo Bill, and the Department of Defense required the appeal to be adjudicated by

1160-403: A lone dispatch courier from Fort Larned to Fort Zarah (escaping brief capture), Fort Zarah to Fort Hays, Fort Hays to Fort Dodge , Fort Dodge to Fort Larned, and, finally, Fort Larned to Fort Hays, a total of 350 miles in 58 hours through hostile territory, covering the last 35 miles on foot. In response, General Philip Sheridan assigned him Chief of Scouts for the 5th Cavalry Regiment . He

1276-512: A low slope, fragmenting, thinning and extending as it went. Most geologists who have worked in the area agree that Absaroka volcanism played a role in the sliding and many suggest that a major volcanic or steam explosion initiated movement. Another model involves injection of numerous igneous dikes with the resulting heating of water within pores in rocks causing an increase in pressure which initiated sliding. Some geologists have suggested that hot pressurized water (hydrothermal fluids), derived from

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1392-462: A noted hunter, scout, and interpreter, used a fast-shooting Henry repeating rifle , while Cody competed with a larger-caliber Springfield Model 1866 , which he called Lucretia Borgia , after the notorious Italian noblewoman, the subject of a popular contemporary Gaetano Donizetti opera Lucrezia Borgia , based on Victor Hugo 's play of the same name. Cody explained that while his formidable opponent, Comstock, chased after his buffalo, engaging from

1508-637: A root cellar, the Honor Roll World War II Memorial and a portion of a remodeled barrack are the only buildings still standing today. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, established in 1996, has worked to preserve and memorialize the site and events, educate the general public about the Japanese American incarceration, and support research about the incarceration so that future generations can understand

1624-582: A scout. Cody enlisted as a scout himself at Fort Ellsworth and scouted between there and Fort Fletcher (later renamed and moved to Fort Hays ). He was attached as a scout, variously, to Captain George Augustus Armes ( Battle of the Saline River ) and Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (guide and impromptu horse race to Fort Larned ). It was during this service at Fort Ellsworth that he met William Rose, with whom he would found

1740-529: A sheet of rock about 500 square miles (1,300 square kilometers) in area detached from the plateau south of the Beartooths and slid tens of kilometers to the southeast and south into the Bighorn and Absaroka Basins. This sheet, consisting of Ordovician through Mississippian carbonate rocks and overlying Absaroka volcanic rocks, was probably originally about 4 to 5 kilometers (2.5 to 3.1 mi) thick. Although

1856-709: A soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War but was refused because of his young age. He began working with a freight caravan that delivered supplies to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. In 1863, at age 17, he enlisted as a teamster with the rank of private in Company H, 7th Kansas Cavalry , and served until discharged in 1865. In 1866, he reunited with his old friend Wild Bill Hickok in Junction City, Kansas , then serving as

1972-474: A street grid, with administrative, hospital, educational, and utility facilities, and 468 residential dormitories to house the internees. All of the buildings were electrified, which was at the time a rarity in Wyoming, but due to time constraints and a largely unskilled workforce, the majority of these "buildings" were poorly constructed. Army higher-ups gave the site's chief engineer only sixty days to complete

2088-848: A visit from King Edward VII and the future King George V. The Wild West traveled throughout Great Britain in a tour in 1902 and 1903 and a tour in 1904, performing in nearly every city large enough to support it. The 1905 tour began in April with a two-month run in Paris, after which the show traveled around France, performing mostly one-night stands, concluding in December. The final tour, in 1906, began in France on March 4 and quickly moved to Italy for two months. The show then traveled east, performing in Austro-Hungarian territories of Bohemia (now

2204-409: A volcano which sat north of Cooke City, Montana , effectively lubricated the sliding surface. Another possibility is that once the slide was moving, friction heated the limestone along the sliding surface, creating pseudotachylite , which then further broke down to calcium oxide and carbon dioxide gas (or supercritical fluid ). The gas supported the slide in the way that air pressure supports

2320-526: A wood-burning stove, and an army cot and two blankets for each member of the family. Bathrooms and laundry facilities were located in shared utility halls, and meals were served in communal mess halls, both assigned by block. Armed military police manned the nine guard towers surrounding the camp. Leadership positions in Heart Mountain were occupied by European-American administrators, although Nisei block managers and Issei councilmen were elected by

2436-529: Is a part), not far from the farm of his father's family. The chapel was built with Cody money, and the land was donated by Philip Cody of Toronto Township. They lived in Ontario for several years. In 1853, Isaac Cody sold his land in rural Scott County, Iowa , for $ 2,000 (equivalent to $ 73,248 in 2023) , and the family moved to Fort Leavenworth , Kansas Territory . In the years before the Civil War, Kansas

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2552-582: Is argued that in contrast to Cody's claims, he never rode for the Pony Express, but as a boy, he did work for its parent company, the transport firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell. In contrast to the adventurous rides, hundreds of miles long, that he recounted in the press, his real job was to carry messages on horseback from the firm's office in Leavenworth to the telegraph station three miles away. After his mother recovered, Cody wanted to enlist as

2668-405: Is considered to be the best preserved of the ten incarceration centers constructed during World War II. The street grid and numerous foundations are still visible. Four of the original barracks survive in place. A number of others sold and moved after the war have been identified in surrounding counties and may one day be returned to their original locations. In early 2007, 124 acres (50.2 ha) of

2784-700: The American Old West , Cody started his legend at the young age of 23. Shortly thereafter he started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Europe. He was born in Le Claire , Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa ), but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in modern-day Mississauga , Ontario , before

2900-549: The Czech Republic ) and Croatia-Slavonia , before returning west to tour in Galicia (now part of Poland ), then Germany, and Belgium. The show was enormously successful in Europe, making Cody an international celebrity and an American icon. Mark Twain commented, "It is often said on the other side of the water that none of the exhibitions which we send to England are purely and distinctly American. If you will take

3016-659: The Heart Mountain Interpretive Center , opened in 2011, located at 1539 Road 19, Powell. The museum includes photographs, artifacts, oral histories and interactive exhibits about the wartime relocation of Japanese Americans, anti-Asian prejudice in America and the factors leading to their enforced relocation and confinement. The land that would become the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center was originally part of

3132-668: The Medal of Honor in 1872 for his actions in the Indian Wars, he was among 910 recipients to have the award rescinded in 1917. Congress reinstated the medals for Cody and four other civilian scouts in 1989. Cody was born on February 26, 1846, on a farm just outside Le Claire, Iowa . His father, Isaac Cody, was born on September 5, 1811, in Toronto Township , Upper Canada , now part of Mississauga , Ontario , directly west of Toronto . Mary Ann Bonsell Laycock, Bill's mother,

3248-611: The Pony Express . He signed with them, and after building several stations and corrals, Cody was given a job as a rider. He worked at this until he was called home to his sick mother's bedside. Cody claimed to have had many jobs, including trapper , bullwhacker , " Fifty-Niner " in Colorado , Pony Express rider in 1860, wagonmaster, stagecoach driver, and a hotel manager , but historians have had difficulty documenting them. He may have fabricated some for publicity. Namely, it

3364-650: The Shoshone Project , an irrigation project under the auspices of the Bureau of Reclamation. In 1897, 120,000 acres (48,562.3 ha) of land surrounding the Shoshone River in northwestern Wyoming was purchased by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Nate Salisbury, who in May 1899 acquired water rights to irrigate 60,000 acres (24,281.1 ha) surrounding Cody, Wyoming . After the project proved too costly for

3480-553: The Wild West show over there you can remove that reproach." The Wild West brought an exotic foreign world to life for its European audiences, allowing a last glimpse at the fading American frontier. Several members of the Wild West show died of accidents or disease during these tours in Europe: In 1895, Cody was instrumental in the founding of the town of Cody , the seat of Park County , in northwestern Wyoming . Today

3596-485: The aristocratic Booth family . It was at this time Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Band was organized. The band was directed by William Sweeney, a cornet player who served as leader of the Cowboy Band from 1883 until 1913. Sweeney handled all of the musical arrangements and wrote a majority of the music performed by the Cowboy Band. In 1893, Cody changed the title to Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of

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3712-407: The 1870s through the early part of the twenty first century. Playwright Frederick G. Maeder adapted Buntline's novel into the hit play Buffalo Bill which premiered at Niblo's Garden in 1872 with J. B. Studley in the title role. Cody attended this play while visiting New York which gave him the idea to portray himself on the stage. He later became world-famous for Buffalo Bill's Wild West ,

3828-607: The 23-year-old Cody met Ned Buntline , who later published a story based on Cody's adventures (largely invented by the writer) in Street and Smith's New York Weekly and then published a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen , which was first serialized on the front page of the Chicago Tribune , beginn ing that December 15. Many other sequels followed by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from

3944-606: The American Exhibition, which coincided with the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria . The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII , requested a private preview of the Wild West performance; he was impressed enough to arrange a command performance for Queen Victoria . The Queen enjoyed the show and meeting the performers, setting the stage for another command performance on June 20, 1887, for her Jubilee guests. Royalty from all over Europe attended, including

4060-559: The Army Board for Correction of Military Records. After months of deliberation, the Board agreed with the persuasive legal brief and made the decision to restore the Medal of Honor, not only to Buffalo Bill but also several other civilian scouts whose medals had also been rescinded. Long after the medal was restored, the decision was thought to be controversial for several reasons. Some people interpreted Simpson's submission as arguing that

4176-749: The Bighorn and Absaroka Basins. Just south of the Beartooth Range, this orogeny uplifted an elongate, somewhat lower plateau which sloped gently to the southeast toward the Bighorn Basin and to the south toward the Absaroka Basin. Immediately following this period of mountain-building, volcanic eruptions began to form the now extinct volcanoes of the Absaroka Range that lie to the south of the Beartooths and extend into Yellowstone National Park . Between 50 and 48 million years ago

4292-630: The East End Exhibition Building, and George C. Crager sold The Ghost Shirt to the Kelvingrove Museum . The show's 1892 tour was confined to Great Britain; it featured another command performance for Queen Victoria. The tour finished with a six-month run in London before leaving Europe for nearly a decade. Buffalo Bill's Wild West returned to Europe in December 1902 with a fourteen-week run in London, capped by

4408-690: The Fair Play Committee were convicted of conspiracy to violate the Selective Service Act and sentenced to four years in federal prison. While the Poston concentration camp in Arizona had the highest number of resisters of any camp, at 106, Heart Mountain's 85 resisters from a much smaller population gave it the highest overall rate of draft resistance. Although Heart Mountain is remembered primarily for its organized resistance to

4524-509: The Heart Mountain hospital, for example, were paid $ 150/month compared to the $ 19/month given Japanese-American doctors) Additionally, some inmates worked on the unfinished Heart Mountain Canal for the Bureau of Reclamation, or did agricultural work outside the camp. Children of inmates began school in barrack classrooms in October 1942. Books, school supplies, and furniture were limited. Despite

4640-608: The Indians; and John Shangren, a native interpreter. In 1891, Buffalo Bill performed in Karlsruhe , Germany, in the Südstadt Quarter. The inhabitants of Südstadt are nicknamed Indianer (German for "American Indians") to this day, and the most accepted theory says that this is due to Buffalo Bill's show. In October Cody brought the show to Dennistoun , Glasgow , where it ran from November 16 until February 27, 1892, in

4756-523: The Old Trail Town museum is at the center of the community and commemorates the traditions of Western life. Cody first passed through the region in the 1870s. He was so impressed by the development possibilities from irrigation, rich soil, grand scenery, hunting, and proximity to Yellowstone Park that he returned in the mid-1890s to start a town. Streets in the town were named after his associates: Beck, Alger, Rumsey, Bleistein, and Salsbury. The town

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4872-561: The Prairie , one of the original Wild West shows produced by Ned Buntline . The effort was panned by critics – one critic compared Cody's acting to a "diffident schoolboy" – but the performer was a hit with the sold-out crowds. In 1873, Cody invited "Wild Bill" Hickok to join the group in a new play called Scouts of the Plains . Hickok did not enjoy acting and often hid behind scenery; in one show, he shot at

4988-585: The Revolutionary War, when Congress decided to create a hierarchy of medals, designating the "Medal of Honor" as the highest military honor it could bestow. Subsequent regulations authorized the War Department to revoke prior Medal of Honor awards it considered not meeting requirements since the introduction of strict regulations promulgated under the 1917 law. Those regulations required the medal to be awarded for acts of bravery above and beyond

5104-955: The Shoshone Canyon Conduit and the Heart Mountain Canal, as one of a number of governmental infrastructure projects. The conduit, spanning 2.8 miles, was completed in September 1938. Construction on the unfinished canal stopped after the United States entered World War II. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 , which authorized military commanders to create zones from which "any or all persons may be excluded." The War Department had requested this and designated Western Washington and Oregon, southern Arizona, and all of California as Exclusion Zones on March 2, 1942. Four days later,

5220-626: The South of France and Barcelona , Spain, then on to Italy. While in Rome, a Wild West delegation was received by Pope Leo XIII . Buffalo Bill was disappointed that the condition of the Colosseum did not allow it to be a venue; however, at Verona , the Wild West did perform in the ancient Roman amphitheater . The tour finished with stops in Austria-Hungary and Germany . In 1891

5336-647: The United States in May 1888 for a short summer tour. Buffalo Bill's Wild West returned to Europe in May 1889 as part of the Exposition Universelle in Paris, an event that commemorated the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille and featured the debut of the Eiffel Tower . On this tour, his portrait was painted by Europe's leading female painter Rosa Bonheur . The tour moved to

5452-463: The West Coast, but they were prohibited from homesteading in Wyoming by an alien land law passed by the state legislature in 1943 (a law that remained in place until 2001). Another Wyoming law excluding them from voting further discouraged Japanese Americans from staying in Wyoming. The last trainload of former inmates left Heart Mountain on November 10, 1945. After Heart Mountain closed, most of

5568-503: The West Coast, provided by administrators with $ 25 and a one-way train ticket to the location they had been picked up from three years earlier. However, even with the earlier group of resettlers, only 2,000 had left by June 1945, and the 7,000 still remaining within Heart Mountain for the most part represented those who were too young or too old to easily relocate. Many Japanese Americans, barred from owning their pre-war homes and farms by discriminatory legislation , had nothing to return to on

5684-572: The World . The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included the US and another military, cowboys , American Indians , and performers from all over the world in their best attire. Turks , gauchos , Arabs , Mongols and Georgians displayed their distinctive horses and colorful costumes. Visitors would see main events, feats of skill, staged races, and sideshows. Many historical western figures participated in

5800-400: The antislavery population. During his return trip, he caught a respiratory infection which, compounded by the lingering effects of his stabbing and complications from kidney disease, led to his death in April 1857. After his death, the family suffered financially. At age 11, Bill worked for the freight carrier Russel, Major, and Waddel as a "boy extra". On horseback, he would ride up and down

5916-595: The assistance of the artist and rancher Abraham Archibald Anderson . Cody established the TE Ranch , located on the south fork of the Shoshone River about thirty-five miles from Cody. When he acquired the TE property, he stocked it with cattle sent from Nebraska and South Dakota. The new herd carried the TE brand. The late 1890s were relatively prosperous years for the Wild West show, and he bought more land to add to

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6032-489: The authority to reinstate the medal directly, and so decided to return the case to the board for reconsideration. As a result, the board amended Cody's record to make him an enlisted soldier – aligning it with the legal argument that civilian scouts were the equivalent to officers or enlisted soldiers – so that he would fall within the legal requirements and did the same for four other civilian guides who had also had their medals rescinded. In doing so,

6148-597: The best views of the sliding surface, called the Heart Mountain fault, can be found along the Chief Joseph Highway ( Wyoming Highway 296 ). The fault is particularly well exposed in Cathedral Cliffs , where it appears as a remarkably straight and nearly horizontal line just above a 2-to-3-meter (6.6 to 9.8 ft) high cliff. The nearby Heart Mountain War Relocation Center , where a number of Japanese Americans were interned during World War II,

6264-542: The board overlooked the fact that Cody was a civilian guide with far greater employment flexibility than a soldier, including the ability to resign at will. Nevertheless the Board did recognize the value that all scouts provided, whether Native American or otherwise, and how they volunteered to put themselves in harm's way (in the case of Buffalo Bill, saving the lives of several soldiers by rushing onto an active battlefield and pulling them to safety while under fire) instead of pursuing less demanding civilian jobs. Cody received

6380-463: The broader issues of race and social justice in America. Visitors can also participate in a walking tour of the site and its remaining structures. Former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta and retired U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson , who met as Boy Scouts on opposite sides of the barbed wire fence surrounding the Heart Mountain compound, act as Honorary Advisors to the Foundation. The Foundation hosts an annual pilgrimage at Heart Mountain,

6496-424: The cabinet level, the legal brief was written in conformance with the statutes. Modern Medal of Honor cases originating from the board, such as the recent case of Garlin Conner , required both executive action as well as a statutory waiver from Congress, which underscores the point that some cases might be in conflict with statutes. In the Cody case, the board's governing assistant secretary recognized that it lacked

6612-402: The call of duty by officers or enlisted soldiers. The law was enacted days before Buffalo Bill died, so he never knew a law might rescind the medal awarded to him. All civilian scout medals were rescinded since they did not appear to meet the basic criterion of being officers or enlisted soldiers, which had been expressly listed in every authorizing statute ever enacted for the Medal of Honor. Cody

6728-431: The camp's main gate.) In 1988 and 1992 the U.S. government passed laws both formally apologizing to Japanese Americans for the internment-era violations of their constitutional, state, and personal property rights, and, establishing a temporary fund to pay limited reparations ($ 20,000) to still-living former internees (or their children) who applied and qualified for them. The site of the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center

6844-406: The cause in 1989. The legal brief he drafted and submitted to the Department of Defense on behalf of the relatives of Buffalo Bill argued that civilian scouts were technically officers, as their native American counterparts were nominally scouts. However, they were given the rank and pay of officers – both for retention purposes. Also, scouts were the equivalent of "reconnaissance" for

6960-438: The center were listed as a National Historic Landmark . The Federal Bureau of Reclamation owns 74 acres (29.9 ha) within the landmark boundary and currently administers the site. The remaining 50 acres (20.2 ha) were purchased by the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1996 to memorialize the center's internees and to interpret the site's historical significance. The Foundation runs

7076-414: The competition. Augusto Imperiali became a local hero after the event: a street and a monument were dedicated to him in his hometown, Cisterna di Latina , and he was featured as the hero in a series of comic strips in the 1920s and 1930s. Cody set up an independent exhibition near the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 , which greatly contributed to his popularity in the United States. It vexed the promoters of

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7192-403: The controversy over which term is the most accurate and appropriate continues to the present day. Scholars and activists have criticized "internment camp" for being a minimizing, misleading euphemism , as Japanese Americans were not there for protection, performed forced labor, and could not leave. Heart Mountain (Wyoming) The carbonate rocks that form Heart Mountain were deposited on

7308-406: The draft, approximately 650 Nisei joined the U.S. Army from this camp, either volunteering or accepting their conscription into the legendary 100th Infantry Battalion, the famed 442nd RCT and MIS. Fifteen of these young men were killed in action and fifty-two wounded. Joe Hayashi and James K. Okubo posthumously received the Medal of Honor for valor in battle, making Heart Mountain the only one of

7424-443: The entire show train had passed, not realizing it was three units, and returned to the tracks; 110 horses, including his mounts Old Pap and Old Eagle, were killed in the crash or had to be killed later. Three young Native Americans were killed in the train accident and many others injured. Annie Oakley's injuries were so severe that she was told she would never walk again. She did recover and continued performing later. The incident put

7540-579: The executive order informally extended to Alaska , covering the entire West Coast of the United States . It defined Japanese Americans, Italian Americans and German Americans as peoples to be excluded from these areas. Soon after the War Department initiated the removal of over 110,000 Japanese Americans from these areas, forcing them into temporary "assembly centers" run by the Wartime Civil Control Administration . Typically, these centers were hastily converted large public spaces, such as fairgrounds and horse racing tracks, while construction on Heart Mountain and

7656-437: The executive order of President Franklin Roosevelt (after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, upon the recommendation of Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt ). This site was managed before the war by the federal Bureau of Reclamation as the would-be site of a major irrigation project. Construction of the camp's 650 military-style barracks and surrounding guard towers began in June 1942. The camp opened August 11, when

7772-421: The fair, who had rejected his request to participate. In 1894, Edison Studios invited Buffalo Bill and his show to be filmed in an early silent film , Buffalo Bill . On October 29, 1901, outside Lexington, North Carolina , a freight train crashed into one unit of the train carrying Buffalo Bill's show from Charlotte, North Carolina , to Danville, Virginia . The freight train's engineer had thought that

7888-408: The family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory . Buffalo Bill started working at the age of 11, after his father's death, and became a rider for the Pony Express at age 15. During the American Civil War , he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout for the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars . While he was initially awarded

8004-426: The family was frequently persecuted by pro-slavery supporters. Cody's father spent time away from home for his safety. His enemies learned of a planned visit to his family and plotted to kill him on the way. Bill, despite his youth and being ill at the time, rode thirty miles (48   km) to warn his father. Isaac Cody went to Cleveland , Ohio , to organize a group of thirty families to bring back to Kansas, to add to

8120-412: The first Japanese Americans were shipped in by train from the internment program's " assembly centers " in Pomona , Santa Anita , and Portland . The camp would hold a total of 13,997 Japanese Americans over the next three years, with a peak population of 10,767, making it the third-largest "town" in Wyoming before its November 10, 1945, closure. Among the inmates, the notation " 心嶺山 ( Shinreizan ) "

8236-480: The first of which coincided with the Interpretive Center's 2011 opening. Since the end of World War II, there has been debate over the terminology used to refer to Heart Mountain and the other camps in which Japanese Americans were incarcerated by the United States Government during the war. Heart Mountain has been referred to as a "War Relocation Center," "relocation camp," "relocation center," " internment camp ," "incarceration camp," and " concentration camp ," and

8352-439: The future Kaiser Wilhelm II and the future King George V . These royal encounters provided Buffalo Bill's Wild West an endorsement and publicity that ensured its success. Also, at this time, Buffalo Bill was presented with written accolades from several of America's high ranking generals including William T. Sherman , Philip H. Sheridan and William H. Emory testifying to his service, bravery, and character. Among

8468-446: The government. In July 1944, in the largest mass trial in Wyoming history, sixty-three Heart Mountain inmates were prosecuted after refusing to show up for their induction and convicted of felony draft evasion . A total of 300 draft resisters from eight WRA camps, including an additional 22 from Heart Mountain sentenced in a subsequent trial, were arrested for this charge, and most served time in federal prison. The seven older leaders of

8584-458: The highest rate of draft resistance of all ten camps, with 85 young men and seven Fair Play Committee leaders ultimately sentenced and imprisoned for Selective Service Act violations. (At the same time, 649 Japanese American men — volunteers and draftees — joined the American military from Heart Mountain. In 1944, internees dedicated an Honor Roll listing the names of these soldiers, located near

8700-660: The incarceration program. More than 2,000 laborers, including men employed by the Harza Engineering Company of Chicago and the Hamilton Bridge Company of Kansas City, began work on June 8, under the direction of the Army Corps of Engineers . The workers enclosed 740 acres (299.5 ha) of arid buffalo grass and sagebrush with a high barbed wire fence and nine guard towers. Within this perimeter, 650 military-style barracks were laid out in

8816-525: The inmate population and participated, in a limited capacity, in administration of the camp. Employment opportunities were available in the hospital, camp schools and mess halls, as well as the garment factory, cabinet shop, sawmill and silk screen shop run by camp officials, although most inmates received a rather paltry salary of $ 12–$ 19 a month, due to the WRA's decision that the Japanese could not earn more than an army private regardless of job. (Caucasian nurses in

8932-536: The land, barracks and agricultural equipment were sold to farmers and former servicemen, who established homesteads on and around the camp site. The Heart Mountain Irrigation Project continued after the war, and much of the camp's surrounding acreage was tilled for irrigation agriculture. Remnants of the hospital complex (including foundations and 3 buildings), a Heart Mountain High School storage shed,

9048-401: The law had never required Cody to be a soldier. However, this was never a key element of Simpson's brief. According to these interpretations, Simpson's submission cited a book, Above and Beyond , to illustrate the lack of requirement to be a soldier. However, it was recognized in the legal brief that Medal of Honor recipients had to be an officer or enlisted soldier. Another problem cited by some

9164-518: The law, but rather conforming the status of civilian scouts to that of other scouts similarly situated (source: copy of the actual legal brief, by the author). Since the Board of Correction is merely a delegation of the Secretary of the Army 's authority, some suggest a separation of powers conflict, since even the president cannot contravene a clear statute and, although Cody's case was dealt with below

9280-667: The length of a wagon train and deliver messages between the drivers and workmen. Next, he joined Johnston's Army as an unofficial member of the scouts assigned to guide the United States Army to Utah , to put down a rumored rebellion by the Mormon population of Salt Lake City . According to Cody's account in Buffalo Bill's Own Story , the Utah War was where he began his career as an "Indian fighter": Presently

9396-480: The lessons of the Japanese American incarceration experience. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation is overseen by a 16-member Board of Directors and is led by the Chair, Shirley Ann Higuchi, a descendant of former internees. The board also includes former internees, scholars, and other professionals working on the local and national level. The Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation gained National Historic Landmark status for

9512-408: The military and thus provided highly valued services. In addition, a practical reason was to avoid mistaking them for opponents in skirmishes. Moreover, although civilian scouts might have normally been officers because of their highly valued skills, the military drawdown and related budget cuts after the Civil War left no billets available for the civilian scouts to fill, and thus they were relegated to

9628-451: The moon rose, dead ahead of me; and painted boldly across its face was the figure of an Indian. He wore this war-bonnet of the Sioux , at his shoulder was a rifle pointed at someone in the river-bottom 30 feet [9   meters] below; in another second he would drop one of my friends. I raised my old muzzle-loader and fired. The figure collapsed, tumbled down the bank and landed with a splash in

9744-445: The mountain traveled to its present location in approximately 30 minutes. In the 48 million years since the slide occurred, erosion has removed most of the portion of the slide sheet which moved out into the Bighorn Basin, leaving just one big block of carbonate rocks—Heart Mountain. Farther south, a large block of carbonate rock forms Sheep Mountain, which lies just south of the road that goes from Cody into Yellowstone Park. Some of

9860-670: The nearest towns but close to fresh water and adjacent to a railroad spur and depot where Japanese Americans, as well as food and supplies, could be off-loaded. On June 1, 1942, the Bureau of Reclamation transferred 46,000 acres (18,615.5 ha) of the Heart Mountain Irrigation Project and several CCC buildings to the War Relocation Authority , the branch of the Western Defense Command responsible for administration of

9976-535: The nickname "Buffalo Bill" after the American Civil War, when he had a contract to supply Kansas Pacific Railroad workers with buffalo (American bison) meat. Cody is purported to have killed 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months in 1867 and 1868. Cody and another hunter, Bill Comstock, competed in an eight-hour buffalo-shooting match over the exclusive right to use the name, which Cody won by killing 68 animals to Comstock's 48. Comstock, part Cheyenne and

10092-905: The original investors, the Wyoming State Board of Land Commissioners petitioned the federal government to take it over. The rights for the Cody-Salisbury tract were transferred to the Secretary of the Interior in 1904 and the Shoshone Project was approved later that year as one of the earliest Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) projects. In 1937 during the Great Depression , the BOR used private contractors and Civilian Conservation Corps laborers to begin construction on

10208-523: The original. The original Honor Roll is being conserved and restored. By the time Roosevelt rescinded Executive Order 9066 in December 1944 and announced that Japanese Americans could begin returning to the West Coast the following month, many had already left camp, most for outside work or to attend college in the Midwest or East Coast. Beginning in January 1945, internees began to leave Heart Mountain for

10324-517: The other leaders of the Fair Play Committee held public meetings to discuss the unconstitutionality of the incarceration and encourage other inmates to refuse military service until their freedom was restored. On March 25, 1944, twelve Heart Mountain resisters who had not reported for their draft physicals were arrested by U.S. Marshals. Emi and two other Committee members who had not received draft notices (due to their age or domestic status) tried to walk out of camp to highlight their status as prisoners of

10440-466: The other more permanent " relocation centers " were completed. On May 23, 1942, the War Department announced that one of the camps for displaced Japanese Americans would be located in Wyoming, and several communities, hoping to capitalize on internee labor for irrigation and land development projects, vied for the site. Heart Mountain was chosen because it was remote yet convenient, isolated from

10556-634: The poor condition of the facilities, attending school offered a sense of normalcy to camp children. In May 1943, the camp high school had been constructed, and the elementary school restructured. The high school, which educated 1,500 students in its first year, featured regular classrooms, a gymnasium and library. Its sports team, including its football team, The Heart Mountain Eagles, eventually competed against other local high school teams. Other sporting events, movie theaters, religious services, crafting groups, and social clubs kept inmates entertained and provided

10672-697: The presentations was a document signed by Governor John M. Thayer of Nebraska appointing Cody as aide-de-camp on the Governor's staff with the rank of colonel dated March 8, 1887. The rank had little official authority but the English press quickly capitalized on the new title of "Colonel Cody". Buffalo Bill's Wild West closed its successful London run in October 1887 after more than 300 performances, with more than 2.5 million tickets sold. The tour made stops in Birmingham and Manchester before returning to

10788-602: The project, and newspaper ads recruiting laborers promised jobs "if you can drive a nail" while workers boasted that it took them only 58 minutes to build an apartment barracks. Thousands of acres of surrounding land were designated for agricultural purposes, as the center was expected for the most part to be self-sufficient. The first inmates arrived in Heart Mountain on August 12, 1942: 6,448 from Los Angeles County; 2,572 from Santa Clara County; 678 from San Francisco; and 843 from Yakima County in Washington. After being assigned

10904-552: The questions' implications, answered "no" to one or both questions, or gave a qualified response like, "I will serve when I am free." Soon after, Kiyoshi Okamoto organized the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee to protest the infringement of Nisei citizen rights, and Frank Emi, Paul Nakadate and others began posting fliers around camp encouraging others not to respond to the questions. When draft orders began arriving in Heart Mountain, Emi, Okamoto and

11020-447: The rear of the herd and leaving a trail of killed buffalo "scattered over a distance of three miles", Cody – likening his strategy to a billiards player "nursing" his billiard balls during "a big run" – first rode his horse to the front of the herd to target the leaders, forcing the followers to one side, eventually causing them to circle and create an easy target, and dropping them close together. In 1869,

11136-491: The short film, a series of adventures presented in flashback as Buffalo Bill's dreams. The film had two other directors before it was successfully completed by John B. O'Brien . The film is in the collection of the Library of Congress. Buffalo Bill's Wild West toured Europe eight times, the first four tours between 1887 and 1892, and the last four from 1902 to 1906. The Wild West first went to London in 1887 as part of

11252-589: The short-lived settlement of Rome . In 1867, with the construction of the Kansas Pacific Railway completing through Hays City and Rome, Cody was granted a leave of absence to hunt buffalo to supply railroad construction workers with meat. This endeavor continued into 1868, which saw his hunting contest with William Comstock. Cody returned to Army service in 1868. From his post in Fort Larned , he performed an exceptional feat of riding as

11368-623: The show out of business for a while, and this disruption may have led to its eventual demise. In 1908, Pawnee Bill and Buffalo Bill joined forces and created the Two Bills show. That show was foreclosed on when it was playing in Denver, Colorado. The Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Film Company, based in New York City, produced a three-reel motion picture in 1912 titled The Life of Buffalo Bill . Cody himself appears in scenes that bookend

11484-832: The show to Great Britain in celebration of the Jubilee year of Queen Victoria , who attended a performance. It played in London and then in Birmingham and Salford , near Manchester , where it stayed for five months. In 1889, the show toured Europe, and, in 1890, Cody met Pope Leo XIII . On March 8, 1890, a competition took place. Buffalo Bill had met some Italian butteri (a less-well-known sort of Italian equivalent of cowboys) and said his men were more skilled at roping calves and performing other similar actions. A group of Buffalo Bill's men challenged nine butteri , led by Augusto Imperiali  [ it ] , at Prati di Castello neighbourhood in Rome. The butteri easily won

11600-633: The show toured cities in Belgium and the Netherlands before returning to Great Britain to close the season. Cody depended on several staffs to manage arrangements for touring with the large and complex show: in 1891 Major Arizona John Burke was the general manager for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Company; William Laugan [ sic ], supply agent; George C. Crager, Sioux interpreter, considered leader of relations with

11716-556: The show was Calamity Jane , as a storyteller as of 1893. The show influenced many 20th-century portrayals of the West in cinema and literature. With his profits, Cody purchased a 4,000-acre (16-km²) ranch near North Platte , Nebraska, in 1886. The Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn for winter storage of the show's livestock. In 1887, invited by the British businessman John Robinson Whitley , Cody took

11832-402: The show. For example, Sitting Bull appeared with a band of 20 of his soldiers. Cody's headline performers were well-known in their own right. Annie Oakley and her husband, Frank Butler , were sharpshooters, together with the likes of Gabriel Dumont and Lillian Smith . Performers re-enacted the riding of the Pony Express , Indian attacks on wagon trains, and stagecoach robberies. The show

11948-551: The site in 2007 and on August 20, 2011, opened the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center. The Center features a permanent exhibit that provides an overview of the history of the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans and the background of anti-Asian prejudice in America that led to it. Along with additional rotating exhibits, these photographs, artifacts and oral histories explore the incarceration experience, constitutional and civil rights issues, and

12064-533: The slope was less than 2 degrees, the front of the landslide traveled at least 25 miles (40 km) and the slide mass ended up covering over 1,300 square miles (3,400 km ). This is by far the largest rockslide known on land on the surface of the Earth and is comparable in scale to some of the largest known submarine landslides. Many models have been proposed to explain what caused this huge slab of rocks to start sliding and what allowed it to slide so far on such

12180-479: The spotlight when it focused on him. He was therefore released from the group after a few months. Cody founded the Buffalo Bill Combination in 1874, in which he performed for part of the year while scouting on the prairies the rest of the year. The troupe toured for ten years. Cody's part typically included a reenactment of an 1876 incident at Warbonnet Creek , where he claimed to have scalped

12296-488: The ten WRA camps to have more than one Medal of Honor recipient. In late 1944, camp inmates erected an Honor Roll in front of the administration building listing the names of these soldiers. This wooden tribute stood for five decades, until the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation removed the deteriorating display for preservation. An accurate reproduction, completed in 2003, now stands in place of

12412-552: The water. "What is it?" called McCarthy, as he hurried back. "It's over there in the water." "Hi!" he cried. "Little Billy's killed an Indian all by himself!" So began my career as an Indian fighter. At the age of 14, in 1860, Cody was caught up in the "gold fever", with news of gold at Fort Colville and the Holcomb Valley Gold Rush in California . On his way to the goldfields, however, he met an agent for

12528-656: Was also Chief of Scouts for the Third Cavalry in later campaigns of the Plains Wars . In January 1872, Cody was a scout for the highly publicized hunting expedition of the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia . Cody was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1872 for documented gallantry above and beyond the call of duty as an Army scout in the Indian Wars. It was revoked in 1917, along with medals of 910 other recipients dating back to

12644-704: Was born about 1817 in Trenton, New Jersey . She moved to Cincinnati to teach school, and there she met and married Isaac. She was a descendant of Josiah Bunting, a Quaker who had settled in Pennsylvania . There is no evidence to indicate Buffalo Bill was raised as a Quaker. In 1847 the couple moved to Ontario, having their son baptized in 1847, as William Cody, at the Dixie Union Chapel in Peel County (present-day Peel Region , of which Mississauga

12760-568: Was incorporated in 1901. In November 1902, Cody opened the Irma Hotel , named after his daughter. He envisioned a growing number of tourists coming to Cody on the recently opened Burlington rail line. He expected that they would proceed up Cody Road, along the north fork of the Shoshone River, to visit Yellowstone Park. To accommodate travelers, Cody completed the construction of the Wapiti Inn and Pahaska Tepee in 1905 along Cody Road with

12876-493: Was named after the peak. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration . Buffalo Bill William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846 – January 10, 1917), known as Buffalo Bill , was an American soldier, bison hunter , and showman . One of the most famous and well-known figures of

12992-527: Was one of five scouts affected. Their medals were stripped shortly after Cody died in 1917. Cody's relatives objected, and, for over 72 years, they wrote repeatedly to the US Congress seeking reconsideration. All efforts failed, until a 1988 letter to the Senate from Cody's grandson received by the office of senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, when a newly assigned legislative assistant (K. Yale) took up

13108-496: Was overtaken by political and physical conflict over the slavery question. Isaac Cody was against slavery. He was invited to speak at Rively's store, a local trading post where pro-slavery men often held meetings. His antislavery speech so angered the crowd that they threatened to kill him if he did not step down. A man jumped up and stabbed him twice with a Bowie knife . Rively, the store's owner, rushed Cody to get treatment, but he never fully recovered from his injuries. In Kansas,

13224-452: Was said to end with a re-enactment of Custer's Last Stand , in which Cody portrayed General Custer, but this is more legend than fact. The finale was typically a portrayal of an Indian attack on a settler's cabin. Cody would ride in with an entourage of cowboys to defend a settler and his family. This finale was featured predominantly as early as 1886 but was not performed after 1907; it was used in 23 of 33 tours. Another celebrity appearing on

13340-524: Was sometimes applied. Heart Mountain is perhaps best known for many of its younger residents challenging the controversial draft of Nisei males from camp in order to highlight the loss of their rights through the incarceration. The Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee , led by Frank Emi and several others, was particularly active in this resistance, encouraging internees to refuse U.S. military induction until they and their families were released from camp and their civil rights were restored. Heart Mountain had

13456-408: Was the authority of the Board to contravene several federal statutes because the Medal of Honor revocation had been expressly authorized by Congress, meaning that the restoration went against the law in force in 1872, the law requiring the revocation in 1916, and the modern statute enacted in 1918 that remains substantially unmodified today. However, the legal brief clearly did not suggest overturning of

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