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According to the official program of the exposition "a Trans Mississippi
Exposition without a wild west show would not fulfill its mission."
The arena, with a thousand or more comfortable seats protected from the
sun and rain, was popular with Eastern and Western visitors. The show
featured scouts, cowboys, rough riders, crack shots and lady riders. In
one part of the show forty cowboys, a quartet of female rough riders a
bunch of wild horses, a stagecoach from the Black Hills presented a
spectacle which vividly recalled the stories and pictures of Parkman's
"Life on the Oregon Trail".
According the the Omaha Bee, on June 22nd: "The Wild West Show was put
into total darkness for about 30 minutes, when a rifle shot from Prof.
Fremont Wheeler, sharpshooter, cut a wire. "
In August, Earnest Mattox was
injured by a shot from one of the guns used in the show. A
soap wad struck him on the knee cap... bone not broken but severely
injured.
The show was owned by Buffalo Bill Cody. As part of his agreement to
bring his show to the Exposition, he asked for a day in honor. Cody Day
was August 31, 1898.
