page_title: Pawnee Bill Ranch
section_title: History of Blue Hawk Peak
hierarchical_section_title: Pawnee Bill Ranch / History of Blue Hawk Peak
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: thrillinglivesof00win (find matches) Title: Thrilling lives of Buffalo Bill, Col. Wm. F. Cody, last of the great scouts and Pawnee Bill, Major Gordon W. Lillie (Pawnee Bill) white chief of the Pawnees Year: 1911 (1910s) Authors: Winch, Frank, 1880- (from old catalog) Subjects: Buffalo Bill, 1846-1917 Pawnee Bill, 1860-1942 Publisher: (New York, S. L. Parsons &amp; co., inc. Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: Indians, cowboys, noted plainsmen, personally identified with recent stirring events, and other strenuous attraction smostly inclined to buck at the mere sight of civilization. The attendance was unprecedented for that section, the whole country for a radius of over one hundred and fifty miles being temporarily depopulated. Thus in a still distant and debatable region, a wilderness over which the buffalo roamed and the hostile savage prowled; under most difficult and dangerous conditions; in furtherance of a purely patriotic purpose, was roughly organized an ephemeral celebration, destined through Col. Codys efforts and masterful personality to become not only the progenitor of all the Frontier Day State and Inter-State tournaments since and still given in the West, and ranking as the most popular attraction at its greatest holiday gatherings, but to serve as the basic idea for an American revelation; border warfare and illustriously illustrative educational entertainment; the only one of its (176) Text Appearing After Image: First Performance kind, and which has electrified and conquered the civilized world, and all the rulers and greatest soldiers, statesmen, educators, scientists, artists, horsemen and historians thereof. Realizing from the strange, spirited and unprecedented object leason created through his efforts at North Platte, its magnificent and meritorious possibilities, in 1882 Col. Cody enthusiastically devoted all his practical knowledge of the plains and intimate acquaintance and superior influence with both the white and red denizens thereof, to the organization of Buffalo Bills Wild West, which gave its initial performance at Omaha, Neb., in May, 1883, and was witnessed by the writer, and even though then lacking many of the notable exclusive features and original living attractions from time to time since introduced, it scored so instantaneously and heavily that it became famous in a day, and en route to Boston was greeted by record-breaking, boundlessly enthusiastic crowds on the race tracks and in Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: The Pawnee Bill Ranch, also known as the Blue Hawk Peak Ranch, was the home of Wild West show entertainer, Gordon W. "Pawnee Bill" Lillie. Located in Pawnee, Oklahoma, it is owned and operated by the Oklahoma Historical Society. The Pawnee Bill Ranch consists of 500 of the original 2000 acres, original outbuildings, a fully furnished historic home, a modern museum, and a herd of bison, Longhorn cattle, and horses.
context_section_description: Pawnee Bill believed strongly in the importance of the bison to the history of the American West and to the Plains Indian culture.  He desired to perpetuate and develop the bison and lobbied congress to pass legislation to protect the animal.  This was the beginning of the ranch's time as a bison preservation.  The ranch is an active member of the Oklahoma Bison Association today.
  In December 1910, Lillie and his wife May's dream of a home on top of a hill overlooking a bend in the Black Bear River was realized.  The building of their Tudor-style Arts and Crafts home was completed after nearly a year of construction.  James Hamilton, an architect from Chester, Pennsylvania, designed the home with input from Lillie and his wife.  The home was a beautiful crafted residence, both comfortable and modern.  Area laborers worked to construct the nearly 5,300 square feet (490 m²) home from native stone quarried from the Ranch grounds.
  Between the years of 1910 and 1926, many other buildings were added to the ranch site.  Between 1910 and 1913 the carriage house, log cabin, blacksmith shop, and observation tower were added to the site by the Lillies to accommodate their growing businesses. In 1926, to meet the need for larger livestock accommodations, the Lillies built an impressive three story barn.  The barn housed Pawnee Bill's herd of Scottish Shorthorn cattle.  Its basement level sheltered the ranch horses while the second floor provided housing for the cattle.  The top was used as storage for alfalfa and other feed crops harvested from the ranch property.
  On October 10, 1975, the site was included on the National Register of Historic Places under the original title of Blue Hawk Peak Ranch.
caption: Pawnee Bill's ranch in 1911
exif: {}