Cody High Style with Craftsman Ken Siggins
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PointsWest FALL 08.qxd:PointsWest-Winter07-5 8/1/08 3:18 PM Page 1 BUFFALO BILL HISTORICAL CENTER I CODY, WYOMING I FALL 2008 Cody High Style with craftsman Ken Siggins More about Buffalo Bill Lee Whittlesey & Lake Yellowstone, part 4 20th anniversary of Yellowstone fires PointsWest FALL 08.qxd:PointsWest-Winter07-5 8/1/08 3:18 PM Page 2 To the point © 2008 Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC). Written permission is required to copy, reprint, or distribute Points West materials in any medium or format. All photographs in Points West are BBHC photos unless otherwise noted. Questions about image rights and reproductions should be directed to Associate Registrar Ann Marie Donoghue at [email protected] or 307.578.4024. Bibliographies, works cited, and footnotes, etc. are purposely omitted to conserve space. However, such information is available by contacting the editor. Address correspondence to Editor, Points West, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, 720 Sheridan Avenue, Cody, Wyoming 82414 or [email protected]. Senior Editor Mr. Lee Haines by Bruce Eldredge Managing Editor Executive Director Ms. Marguerite House Copy Editors To the point Ms. Lynn Pitet, Ms. Joanne Patterson, Ms. Nancy McClure Designer ell, it’s been a wild ride here at the Buffalo Bill Ms. Jan Woods–Krier Historical Center this summer with the national Photography Staff Weconomy and high gas prices affecting tourism. Ms. Chris Gimmeson, Mr. Sean Campbell From day-to-day, we hardly knew if we were doing better Book Reviews or worse than 2007. If this sounds familar, then you know Dr. Kurt Graham what we’ve been experiencing. Nevertheless, there are a Historical Photographs number of constants in the life of the center. Ms. Mary Robinson; Ms. Megan Peacock First and foremost, regardless of the national economy Rights and Reproductions or gas prices, our visitors can still expect and experience Ms. Ann Marie Donoghue the finest collections, exhibitions, and programs on the Calendar of Events Ms. Nancy McClure American West. Thousands flocked here to see our five museums and enjoy such programs as the 27th Annual Advisory Team Lee Haines, Public Relations Director and Senior Editor Plains Indian Museum Powwow, a remarkable event that I had the privilege of seeing for the first time. Marguerite House, Media Manager and Managing Editor Secondly, we continue to be recognized for our leader- Nancy McClure, Public Relations Assistant and Calendar Coordinator ship in the museum field. As you have no doubt noticed Wally Reber, Acting Vice-President and Deputy Director Development from the opposite page, we are now an Affiliate of the Jan Jones, Director of Membership Smithsonian Institution—the only one in Wyoming. I urge Mindy Besaw, Curator, Whitney Gallery of Western Art you to read more about this extraordinary partnership on Megan Wasp, Public Programs Coordinator page eighteen. It truly is a great partnership that promises to Jan Woods-Krier, Senior Graphic Designer bode well for our future. Points West is published quarterly as a benefit of membership of the With this partnership, we’re well on our way to becoming Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC). For membership information, contact one of the top ten to fifteen museums in the country. Jan Jones, Director of Membership, at [email protected] or by writing to However, we can’t rest on our laurels; there is more work the address above. The BBHC is a private, non-profit, educational institution dedicated to to be done. Our tasks are: Deelop a stronger financial base preserving and interpreting the natural and cultural history of the American less reliant on annual visitation; as a staff, adopt a more West. Founded in 1917, the BBHC is home to the Buffalo Bill Museum, team-oriented approach to our projects and activities; Whitney Gallery of Western Art, Plains Indian Museum, Cody Firearms Museum, Draper Museum of Natural History, and McCracken Research Library. and clearly identify and work toward future goals and The mission of Points West is to deliver an engaging educational magazine objectives. With your help and support, we will continue to primarily to the patrons of the BBHC. Points West will use a multi-disciplinary move forward as an institution that educates the public strategy to connect the reader to the nature and culture of the American West, and the BBHC in particular, through exceptional images and appealing, about the American West. I reader-friendly stories. About the cover: “A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.” — Louis Nizer, twentieth-century jurist and author (1902 –1994) One would almost think Nizer had met Ken Siggins, a Cody, Wyoming, furniture maker, since his words describe Siggins to the proverbial “T.” As a member of the Cody Western Artisans, Siggins and his fellow craftsmen—who call him “the bridge between Molesworth and today”—are gearing up for Cody High Style: Designing the West, September 23 – 27. Read more about Siggins and his work on page twelve. Cover photo by Chris Gimmeson. 2 PointsWest FALL 08.qxd:PointsWest-Winter07-5 8/1/08 3:18 PM Page 3 Points West I Fall 2008 Contents For the western furniture maker, it all starts with the wood. Against the backdrop of Wyoming’s Absaroka Mountains and the valley of the South Fork of the Shoshone River, Cody Western Artisan Ken Siggins searches for just the right timber for his next creation. Follow the progress from log to furniture on page twelve. FEATURES DEPARTMENTS 4 We want them dead rather than alive: Buffalo Bill’s fight BBHC BITS AND BYTES, also continued p.18 against Wyoming’s outlaws, part 2. Bevins later fell on 15 News, activities, events hard times because of a woman of bad character, who some historians claim was Calamity Jane. It is reported that 16 CALENDAR OF EVENTS Bevins and Calamity Jane lived as husband and wife, and she rode with his Black Hills gang. By Jeremy Johnston IN OUR BACKYARD: YELLOWSTONE 19 Yellowstone’s burning issue: the fires twenty years later By Charles R. Preston, PhD 9 Byways, boats, and buildings: Yellowstone Lake in History, part 4. The big renovation in 1903–1904 was designed 28 TREASURES FROM OUR WEST by, and its construction overseen by, architect Robert This month’s look at our collections Reamer at the same time his crews were building the new Old Faithful Inn forty miles away. The new look gave the 30 BETWEEN THE BOOKENDS hotel the colonial styling that it still has today. By Lee H. Cody by Lynn Houze. Review by Arcadia Publishing Whittlesey 31 A THOUSAND WORDS 12 A day in the life of a craftsman: Ken Siggins, Cody Western Artisan. Since 1963, Ken Siggins of Triangle Z Furniture has created ranch furniture in the style of early settlers to the area. His fellow Cody Western Artisans call him the “bridge between Molesworth and today.” Photography by Sean Campbell; text by Marguerite House. 24 The Cowboy Scourge (1887 Commentary by Bill Nye, New York World). Buffalo Bill is encircling the earth with his Wild West show. Everywhere the fever follows his performances. Wherever he goes, high-heeled boots, lariats, tarantula juice, and hair rise to a fictitious value. Boys leave the farm Visit us online . to follow the show away. Picnics lose their flavor and seem flat. Climbing a shag-bark tree to fasten a swing does not Read more about the Buffalo Bill Historical Center becoming seem so daring a feat as it used to. a Smithsonian Affiliate on our Web site, www.bbhc.org/museums/SmithsonianAffiliate.cfm. Magazine of the Buffalo Bill Historical Center • Cody, Wyoming 3 PointsWest FALL 08.qxd:PointsWest-Winter07-5 8/1/08 3:18 PM Page 4 We want them dead rather than alive: By Jeremy Johnston William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s autobiography published that he would not be sorry, presently, that he had given it in 1879 contained many “true” accounts of him chasing and away, and proceed to kill me to distract his thoughts from capturing various desperados in the Wyoming region. “All the loss.” along the stage route were robbers and man-killers far more Unlike Twain, Buffalo Bill did not fear Slade. Instead, vicious than the Indians,” wrote Buffalo Bill. In part two of he stated in his autobiography that “Slade, although rough “Outlaws,” Buffalo Bill relates several stories about Wyoming at times and always a dangerous character — having outlaws, the first encounter of which occurred during his killed many a man — was always kind to me. During the employment with Russell, Majors, and Waddell, when he two years that I worked for him . he never spoke an claimed he worked as a Pony Express rider. angry word to me.” Joseph Slade Hunting bears, eluding n 1861, fifteen-year-old Cody found “Slade, outlaws himself working at the Horseshoe although Buffalo Bill recalled an adventure on a IStation, located some thirty miles west solo bear hunt near Laramie Peak during of Fort Laramie, where he was “occasionally rough at this time at Horseshoe Station. “Very early riding pony express and taking care of times . was in my career as a frontiersman, I had an stock.” A violent gunfighter, Joseph Slade, encounter with a party of these [outlaws] managed the Horseshoe Station and acted as always kind from which I was extremely fortunate to Buffalo Bill’s boss. Slade’s violent exploits to me.” escape with my life,” wrote Buffalo Bill in on both sides of the law were well known his autobiography.