Pawnee Bill
Gordon William Lillie
1860-1942
1875
comes to Indian Territory
1879
appointed teacher for the Pawnee Indians
1883
joins Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show
1888
start Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show
1908
Buffalo Bill's and Pawnee Bill's shows combine
12-26-1908
Ernest Haag of the Mighty Haag Shows bought items from the Pawnee Bill's
Wild West including
camels, wagons, cars, and
the Columbus - John Smith Bandwagon (built in 1904)
(20 ft by 10 ft) (in 1903 it cost $4,000 to make)
also the India or Jardiner Tableau wagon
steam calliope (built by Sullivan and Eagle about 1900 for Pawnee Bill Wild West
show)
railroad equipment
1913
Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Great Far East Show closes
Pawnee Bill's real name was Gordon William Lillie.
The Pawnee called Pawnee Bill, White Chief of the Pawnee.
Buffalo Bill Cody was Pawnee Bill's boyhood hero.
Pawnee Bill fell in love with and married a Philadelphia society girl named May
Manning.
Pawnee Bill's wife, May Lillie, became an expert marksman and she starred in
Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show.
From the 1890's to the 1930's, Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show was the biggest and
the best of all the touring Wild West Shows.
In the glory days of Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show, they carried a cast and crew
of 645 people, over 400 horses and steers, a herd of 20 buffalo, the world's
largest power plant or generator, and a 21 foot oven. All of this was loaded on
a specially designed train and they toured the world for over 30 years.
Looking across the Oklahoma prairie, one can
imagine scenes once visible to the people of the frontier: No Man's Land, Indian
Territory, cowboys, buffalo, and the great rolling plains.
No other Oklahoman exemplified "The Wild West" as did Gordon W. Lillie ...Pawnee
Bill. He was born in Illinois in 1860 and became interested in the west as a
child. He came to Indian Territory in 1875 and was appointed teacher for the
Pawnee Indians in 1879. In 1883, Gordon W. Lillie joined the newly formed
"Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" as an interpreter and performer. In 1886 he
married May Manning, a 15 year old girl from Philadelphia he had met while
traveling with the show. In 1888 Pawnee Bill formed his own "Wild West Show" and
May became a very popular act in her own right for her marksmanship and riding.
In 1908, Pawnee Bill merged his Wild West Show with the Buffalo Bill Wild West
Show and the combined show became know as "The Two Bills' Show." It was billed
as the entertainment triumph of the ages and it traveled all over the world
entertaining audiences with both realistic and fantasy views of the Old West.
The show closed in Denver, Colorado, in 1913 after touring for five seasons as
"Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Pawnee Bill's Great Far East Show."
Pawnee Bill, always an entertainer and interested in preserving the Old West for
future generations, built "Pawnee Bill's Old Town and Trading Post" two miles
west of his buffalo ranch. This tourist attraction was complete with rustic
cabins to rent, restaurants featuring buffalo steaks, Indian dancing, Indian
tepees and mud lodges, and buffalo grazing in the background. It was the scene
of many large statewide celebrations for the boy scouts as well as other
organizations and famous people. Old Town burned to the ground in 1944 and with
it some of the finest objects of Indian art and artifacts of the Old West were
destroyed.
Pawnee Bill died in 1942, just eleven days before his 82nd birthday. Even in his
last years, time that had whitened his hair had not dimmed the piercing grey
eyes nor the spirit of this old frontiersman. The year before his death he still
presented a lithe, immaculate figure in buckskins and wide sombrero. With his
long hair touching his shoulder, he still was that picturesque character who, in
a varied lifetime, had been a deciding factor in the settlement of the state of
Oklahoma.