Tuesday, June 05, 2007

"Buffalo Bill"

In June of 2002 the brick facade of a building in our downtown started to fall off the building. A construction crew was called in to remove the facade. As they were working they discovered a 6 panel billboard glued to the original wall. The billboard had been covered by bricks for more than 100 years. Restorers were hired to put the hundreds of pieces back together. The billboard is believed to be the oldest in the country because new posters were glued right on top of old ones. The billboard advertised William "Buffalo Bill" Cody coming to Jamestown March 14, 1878.
It took 5 years to reassemble and restore this 26ft wide and 10 ft tall billboard. To learn more about the poster and "Buffalo Bill" click here.
I'm sorry to say I didn't get to see the unveiling but thought you might find this interesting.

4 comments:

OldBagNewTricks said...

What a wonderful find -- and how smart of them to save it!!! No small thing. Thank you for sharing this -- I love these fascinating tidbits of history, little peeks into who people were, how they did things. Fun, thanks.

Jenny

Carole Burant said...

Oh wow, can you imagine how the men felt to find this billboard behind the bricks!! That's truly wonderful...makes you wonder how many more treasures are hidden behind brick and such on old buildings! xox

Tammy said...

How interesting...a new twist on "If these Walls Could Talk"
:)

RUTH said...

What an exciting find...Buffalo Bills name is well known even here in the UK