Buffalo Bill and the Mormons by Brent M. Rogers is a fun and interesting book about the intersections of “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s life with the Latter-day Saints. The basic idea is that the American superstar, soldier, bison hunter, and showman launched his acting career at a time when anti-Mormon propaganda had become a profitable and popular area of storytelling. Cody embraced using Latter-day Saints as stock villains in his storylines, portraying Latter-day Saints as enemies of the proper home. Cody was, of course, the defender of the proper home in the plays in which he performed and seems to have initially believed the messages of that propaganda to some degree.
Eventually, however, Cody warmed up to the Latter-day Saints. After the official end of polygamy as a practice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1890, an experience where Cody traveled through Utah and visited with Latter-day Saints in their homes on his way to explore the Grand Canyon, and the way Latter-day Saints represented themselves as pioneers of the west and masters of irrigation at 1893 Chicago World Fair helped to shift Cody’s mindset. He gradually came to respect Latter-day Saints, particularly for their ability to cooperatively irrigate and settle the arid western U.S. And it just so happened that a few years later, that was exactly what he needed to establish the town of Cody, Wyoming in the arid land of the Big Horn Valley. He secured an alliance with some Latter-day Saint settlers, though occasionally regretted that decision as they pushed for him to donate more land to their cause.
The discussion of Cody’s anti-Mormon performances has some nice overlap with Convicting the Mormons: The Mountain Meadows Massacre in American Culture, by Janiece Johnson. Both books discuss the ways in which Latter-day Saints were portrayed in popular culture, including discussions about ideals of true masculinity and the proper structure of the family and how those shaped the portrayal of Latter-day Saints as a violent and sexually deviant minority group. Both books discuss plays and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows as mediums through which anti-Mormon propaganda were shared (though Buffalo Bill and the Mormons tended to go into more detail in showing what those stories entailed). Both discuss the role of the John D. Lee trials in shaping public opinion about Latter-day Saints (though Convicting the Mormons goes into greater detail on that aspect).
Another book with which Buffalo Bill and the Mormons has some notable overlap is The Last Called Mormon Colonization: Polygamy, Kinship, and Wealth in Wyoming’s Big Horn Basin, by John Gary Maxwell. Both books have a lot of focus on the efforts of Latter-day Saints to settle the area around Cody, Wyoming. They do, however, differ in focus—Buffalo Bill and the Mormons is more focused on the relationship between Buffalo Bill Cody and the Latter-day Saints, while The Last Called Mormon Colonization is more focused on the Latter-day Saint settlers, their leaders, and the potential for the area to become a haven for post-manifesto polygamists.
What sets Buffalo Bill and the Mormons apart as an important contribution to the history of the western United States is that it ties the settlement of Latter-day Saints in the Big Horn Valley of Wyoming with the earlier activities of William Cody. By doing so, it shows the complexity of his relationship with Mormons as well as highlights changing perceptions of Latter-day Saints in the U.S. It is well-written, too—I would say that it was actually the most fun I’ve had reading a book in a while.