Vacationing along the Edges of Florida: Buffalo Bill Museum (and more)

In LeClaire, Iowa, is a museum of artifacts and history of the life of Buffalo Bill Cody who was born near there in 1846. The Buffalo Bill Museum was begun in 1957. We visited on May 20th while passing through LeClaire on our way to Hannibal, Missouri.

Bill Cody is best known for his Wild West Show which began in 1883 taking an exhibition version of "the west" to areas of the country (and eventually the world) that would never experience it first hand. But he was also a rider on the Pony Express as a young man and served as an Indian scout.

The museum is located on the riverfront in LeClaire in a red brick building. Inside we met two wonderful volunteers who winter in Florida but spend the rest of the year working at the Buffalo Bill Museum. They will orient you to the museum as it includes not just the Buffalo Bill exhibits, but also exhibits about life in the 1800s and is home to the Lone Star Steamer, the last wooden-hull sternwheeler which is listed as a National Historic Landmark.

You can read a bit about Bill Cody in the sign outside the museum.

The museum includes more than just exhibits of Buffalo Bill.

We saw a lot of stuffed buffalo on our trip.

There is a whole riverboat in the museum.

This has information about the Lone Star built in 1868.

You are allowed to walk on the boat! That was a bit surprising to us.

The crew was usually 4-5 people. Here's the kitchen where they cooked.

The museum also contains exhibits on loan from the National Pearl Button Museum, displaying how pearl buttons are made from the shells of river clams. It was interesting to see how the button blanks were punched from the shells before being sent off for holes and polishing. I'd never thought about what buttons were made of before, but I do have a small collection of buttons at home!

See the one with the holes? That's where blanks have been punched.

This is the machine that punches the blanks from the shells.

But Buffalo Bill is the main attraction! There is a film about his life and about the Wild West show and its influence on the perception of life in the west during its run. I was particularly interested in the photographs of him with various people. Here are some pictures from the museum.