Buffalo Bill's Visit to Rhyl

Great excitement in Rhyl as Col. William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody visits in May 1903 with his sensational Wild West show.

With his flowing mane and ten-gallon hat, wild west showman Buffalo Bill is an easy target for Arthur Cheetham’s camera as he steps from his carriage and enters Rhyl’s Lorne hotel (on Market Street) through the waiting throng. He emerges a newly sworn-in member of the local lodge of The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes, and is seen being driven away among an excited, hat-flinging crowd.

William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody and his American ‘Wild West’ Show stormed into Rhyl in May 1903 in four special trains. The single performance, in a large marquee, included the tale of the ‘Pioneers of the Plains’ who colonised the American mid-west, told in such re-enactments as ‘The Stage Coach “Hold-up”’ and ‘Attack on the Emigrant Train’. Cheetham didn’t film the show itself, but placed his camera later in the afternoon outside the Lorne Hotel, where Cody was to be granted honorary membership of the local lodge of The Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes (being already a member in the States).