The Reg Lenna Civic Center in Jamestown, New York, is pleased to announce that it unveiled the fully restored 1878 Buffalo Bill Cody Billboard on Saturday, June 2, 2007, exactly five years to the day it was discovered behind a collapsed brick facade of a downtown Jamestown building. The billboard is the oldest known extant billboard in the country.

After June 2nd, the billboard will be placed on permanent public display, high on a wall of the Civic Center's inner lobby.

The featured speaker for the evening was Dr. Juti Winchester, Curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. Also, Laura Schell, the paper conservator who restored the billboard, described the dramatic process of putting the fragile, 129-year old billboard back together, from getting it off the wall to reassembling its many hundreds of torn pieces. A short video documentary was provided for the attendees with visual images of the painstaking restoration task. Direct descendants of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody were expected to attend and comment on this remarkable discovery of very early images of their ancestor. The event concluded with the reading of an original play, based on the only script left from the 12-year period before the Wild West Shows when Cody toured America with his Border Dramas.

The Billboard is of great historical importance. Dr. Winchester, a recognized expert on the subject, has stated, "The 1878 "Buffalo Bill Combination" billboard has several levels of significance. Its large size affords us more than a glimpse at the visual impact of early advertising used by Cody and his Combination (Border Dramas). It has a high degree of historical integrity; we know exactly when and for what program it was posted, and it has lain undisturbed in its original place until its highly documented discovery and removal in 2002. This billboard helps to fill in an informational gap concerning the nature of Cody's theatrical enterprises in the late 1870's. Finally, restoration of the Billboard makes possible an unparalleled opportunity to study and preserve a relic not only pertaining to Buffalo Bill, but to the history of American theater."

The program included the world premiere staged reading of the play "Behind the Buckskin Curtain: Buffalo Bill's Border World," The play, an incisive look at Buffalo Bill's theater from a contemporary Native American perspective, is made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, was commissioned by the Civic Center and written by Carlos Cumpián, a Chicago-based performer, poet, playwright, teacher and publisher.

Future plans include design and installation of an interpretive exhibit on the mezzanine level of the Civic Center that will add immeasurably to understanding the times and context in which Buffalo Bill lived and the forces that, in a very real way, shaped "The American character." As well, the Arts Council for Chautauqua County is seeking funding to produce a documentary portraying the discovery and restoration of the Billboard.

Many individuals and organizations supported the restoration of this artifact. "The conservation work was made possible using a grant, received by the Civic Center in 2004," according to Patricia Anzideo, Project Manager. "The grant was issued through 'Save America's Treasures' a collaboration of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service. We received the grant because the 1878 billboard is considered not only a significant historic artifact but also a great piece of art." Ms. Anzideo went on to say that, "research indicates that our billboard is a unique artifact from that era and this grant recognizes it as a National Treasure."

" The Civic Center is especially grateful to Lamar Advertising for their early recognition of the significance of this discovery and the need for restoration", she continued. In recognition of this, additional support has been received from other corporations, foundations, and individuals. All these donors will be acknowledged at the June 2nd unveiling.

A longer article is available. For more images of the Billboard, information on its historical background, discovery and restoration – please contact David Schein, david@artscouncil.com, 716-664-2465 ext. 6 or Pat Anzideo, flaxman@netsync.net, 716-484-0551. Meet John Young Nelson, known as “Cha-Sha-Sha-O-Pogeo”

John Y. Nelson, one of the most colorful of the Western frontiersmen, traveled with Buffalo Bill for approximately 10 years. He was an audience favorite in the Buffalo Bill Combination shows during the 1870's and with the Wild West Show in the 1880's.

Born August 25, 1826, in Charleston, Virginia, of “American parents”,

John Young Nelson ran away from home about age 12. After making his way to Missouri, he joined a party of traders going further west. Along the way, he developed excellent shooting, hunting, and horsemanship skills. The trading party encountered a large band of Sioux on the Platte River, the first Native Americans Nelson had ever seen. He became fascinated by their culture and wanted to learn all about them. He kept going to their camp, refusing to leave, even as the traders moved on without him.

Being stuck with the young boy, the Sioux adopted him and gave him the

name “Cha-Sha-Sha-O-Pogeo”, or “Redwood Fill the Pipe”. ( Because of its flavor, Nelson was fond of putting red willow powder in the tobacco he smoked.) From the Sioux he learned all about the plains buffalo, hunting and scounting skills, and became an accurate reporter of Sioux life.

Since Nelson spoke both English and the Sioux language, he became

valuable in trading transactions. In one such encounter, Nelson met Brigham Young, leading a party of Mormons to Utah. Nelson agreed to guide them on their journey. He became a scout for the US Army in 1857. In that capacity, he was with the troops that arrived too late to prevent the Mountain Meadows Massacre in southern Utah. He spoke with some of the few children who survived and, in his autobiography, provides a near-witness account of what happened.

The 1878 Buffalo Bill Cody Combination show "May Cody, or Lost and

Won", which is advertised in a recently discovered billboard from that time, was based on this incident in American history. It was the first time that Bill Cody had hired Sioux friends to take part in one of his shows. Nelson began as a translator for the Sioux and became a featured performer as well. A life-size image of him (a major part of the 1878 historic billboard) has now been restored and is on display in the Reg Lenna Civic Center in Jamestown, NY.

Several years followed of Nelson's being a guide, hunter, trader, pony

express rider, cattle driver, bartender, and sheriff, and a driver of the Deadwood Stage. His autobiography records a “run out” with Bill Cody:

“I had known him since 1857, when he was driving teams along the route. He and I were very good friends, and a good deal of his knowledge of the country round he owed to me.”

Cody once convinced Nelson to go out on the prairie on a hunting trip,

despite the fact that Nelson had a bullet in his leg. Seventy miles out, something startled the horses, leaving both men alone in the wilderness without transportation. Cody left Nelson with some food and walked a great distance to get help, which came remarkably soon and saved Nelson's life.

During the time of the re-settling of Native Americans on reservations,

Nelson was officially recognized by the US government as a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe and received land on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“My wife, children, and myself had a claim for land, farming implements, rations, goods, and in fact everything that the treaty guaranteed. I may here state that I have never asked for anything myself; but in time the land will become very valuable, provided the government does not steal it, which I think it will do sooner or later.”

(Quotes are from Fifty Years on the Trail: The Adventures of John Young Nelson, as described to Harrington O’Reilly. 1889) February 10, 2006 1878 BUFFALO BILL CODY BILLBOARD RESTORATION PROJECT: FIRST RESTORED PANEL UNVEILED, DISPLAYED IN REG LENNA CIVIC CENTER

The first conserved panel of the 1878 Buffalo Bill Cody Billboard was unveiled at the Reg Lenna Civic Center in Jamestown, NY, on Friday, February 10, just before being installed in the inner lobby for the public to visit.

The program featured Mari-Rose Morris, great granddaughter of John Young Nelson and Folk Arts Specialist for the Wyoming Arts Council. Ms. Morris spoke about her family legacy. Additional members of the Nelson family were present from several places in the U.S. , attending to honor their ancester in the traditions of the Lakota Sioux.

Paper conservator Laura Schell described the process of conserving the antique 126-year old paper. Project manager Pat Anzideo described the campaign to restore the billboard. David Schein, executive director of the Reg Lenna Civic Center, spoke about the Billboard’s place in the Civic Center's Lobby expansion and the future of the exhibition as part of the Center's programming.

A 26’x 10’ billboard, advertising a live theater performance of Buffalo Bill and his theater troupe in Jamestown in 1878, was discovered in 2002 when a brick wall on a building adjacent to the Civic Center collapsed. Meant to last a couple of weeks, it had been preserved on wood under a brick façade for 124 years. Due to the efforts of many Jamestown community members assisting the paper conservator, the entire billboard was stripped off the wall and preserved. When the restoration is complete it will be oldest extant billboard in the country and one of great historical and artistic significance. The first panel and all the panels to follow will be exhibited in the lobby of the Reg Lenna Civic Center as part of a permanent display built around the artifact.

The first segment to be conserved and exhibited is the life-size 6.5’ image of John Y. Nelson, a frontiersman who starred in the Jamestown performance and served as a translator for the Lakota Sioux who also performed with Buffalo Bill.

The billboard advertises a performance on March 14, 1878, of “May Cody or Lost and Won,” The play is a melodrama about the notorious Mountain Meadows Massacre - a terrible chapter in American history that occurred in 1857 when an extreme wing of Utah Mormons disguised as Indians, ambushed a wagon train of California-bound emigrants . Cody, in his theater shows and in his autobiography, was famous for inserting himself as the main character in historical events of the West. Though the real Buffalo Bill had nothing to do with Mountain Meadows– in the play, Bill’s sister, May Cody, is kidnapped and off he goes to the rescue – a totally fictional account.

Removed from the wall by paper conservator Laura Schell, the antique pieces of paper that comprise the billboard came off the wooden sheathing of the building in hundreds of extremely fragile pieces. Mrs. Schell is engaged in a painstaking process of piecing together the huge jigsaw puzzle of the billboard to recreate its original form.

The 6.5’ figure of John Young Nelson, known as Cha-Sha-Sha-O-Pogeo, his given Sioux name, shows him in full western regalia. In addition to being a friend of Cody’s, Nelson was a scout, trapper, trader, and colorful Old West character who became part of Cody’s theater troupe just prior to their 1878 traveling show as it played in cities and small towns throughout the East, including Jamestown. In the days before mass media, shows like this gave people a sometimes real, sometimes mythological glimpse of what life was like in the “Wild West.” The 1877-78 theater season was the first time that Cody hired Native Americans to play themselves in his productions. Nelson traveled with the show to act as interpreter for the Sioux actors and also to play himself in “May Cody, or Lost and Won”. Nelson had been an army scout at the time and was as close to an “eye witness” to the Mountain Meadows massacre as might have been.

In an era before broadcast media, William Cody brought people his theatrical interpretation of the events of the day. Were he alive today we’d describe him as "a media superstar." Buffalo Bill launched his theatrical career in 1872 and toured the country for 10 years before beginning his Wild West Show. Each year his theater troupe -- the Buffalo Bill Combination -- presented a different show. Juti Winchester, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, has stated: "The 1878 ?‘Buffalo Bill Combination’ billboard has several levels of significance. Its large size affords us more than a glimpse at the visual impact of early advertising used by Cody and his Combination. It has a high degree of historical integrity; we know exactly when and for what program it was posted, and it has lain undisturbed in its original place until its highly documented discovery and removal in 2002. This billboard helps to fill in an informational gap concerning the nature of Cody’s theatrical enterprises in the late 1870’s. Finally, restoration of the Billboard would make possible an unparalleled opportunity to study and preserve a relic not only pertaining to Buffalo Bill, but to the history of American theater."

"The conservation work is made possible through a Save America’s Treasures grant, received by the Civic Center in 2004. One of 60 grants awarded in 2004, out of a total of 390 applications, it is one of only 11 that was issued through the National Endowment for the Arts because the 1878 billboard is considered not only a significant historic artifact but also a great piece of art” according to Ms. Anzideo. Save America’s Treasures is a program of the National Parks Service in collaboration with other federal cultural agencies.

The Lamar Advertising Company provided the first pledge towards the required matching funds for the federal grant. Pat Anzideo, Project Manager for the billboard restoration said “Research indicates that our billboard is a unique artifact from that era and this grant validates it as a National Treasure." " The Civic Center is especially grateful to Lamar Advertising for their early recognition of the significance of this discovery and the need for restoration”, she continued. In recognition of this, additional support has been received from Magic Media, Inc. and Interstate Outdoor Advertising companies.

The billboard, as it is restored section by section, and finally in its entirety, will be a major tourist attraction. “We are already receiving calls and inquiries from all over the country from people who want to come and see it, once it's installed in the inner lobby of the Civic Center”, said David Schein, Executive Director of the Reg Lenna Civic Center. “The Civic Center stands on the site of the original Allen Opera House where the “Buffalo Bill Combination” performance took place on March 14, 1878. It’s incredible to think that 128 years ago one of the superstars of American history and theater came to Jamestown and that we have such a significant record of that event. The Great Spirits were very kind to Jamestown to leave this artifact on our wall. It will certainly bring historians, art conservators, fans of Western Art and Buffalo Bill buffs from all over the world to downtown Jamestown and the Reg. " October 22, 2004 Historic Billboard Restoration Begins with Local Donation and Federal Grant

A federal Save America's Treasures grant has been awarded to the Reg Lenna Civic Center to restore an 1878 Buffalo Bill Cody Billboard that was discovered in Jamestown, N.Y., according to David Schein, Executive Director of the Arts Council for Chautauqua County. This news coincides with the unveiling of the first conserved segment of the billboard to be shown to the public.

This historic artifact was discovered in June, 2002, when a brick facade collapsed from a downtown building owned by the Civic Center, revealing the billboard beneath. Removed from the wall by Laura Schell, a certified paper conservator, the antique pieces of paper have been kept in archival storage. The 126-year-old billboard measures approximately 24 feet long and 10 feet high. It came off the wooden sheathing of the building in hundreds of extremely fragile pieces.

"Thankfully the Civic Center board and staff recognized the significance of this billboard at the time of its discovery and accepted the responsibility for preserving it and eventually exhibiting it for the public, " said Suzanna Cody, great grand-niece of William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who was present for the announcement and unveiling.

A donation from Lamar Outdoor Advertising allowed the Civic Center to pay for the conservation of one of the billboard's six sections -- the upper half of a poster of John Young Nelson, one of the Old West "superstars" featured in the show "May Cody or Lost and Won" that played in Jamestown in 1878. "We believe that it was this initial conservation work, clearly demonstrating that the restoration was feasible, that is, in part, the basis for our receiving the federal grant," said Pat Anzideo, an officer of the Civic Center and Project Manager for the billboard. "Research indicates that our billboard is a unique artifact from that era and this grant validates it as a National Treasure. We're especially grateful to Lamar Outdoor Advertising for their early recognition of the significance of this discovery and the need for restoration", she continued.

The Civic Center received one of 60 Save America's Treasures grants to be awarded nationwide, out of a total of 390 applications. "Of those 60 grants, this is one of only 11 that will be issued through the National Endowment for the Arts because the 1878 billboard is considered not only a significant historic artifact but also a great piece of art" according to Ms. Anzideo. Save America's Treasures is a program of the National Parks Service in collaboration with other federal cultural agencies.

"The construction crew that uncovered this billboard knew they had stumbled upon a true piece of American art. But this billboard is more than an artistic treasure -- it is an historic treasure as well. The folklore and fact surrounding of Buffalo Bill's life peeked the curiosity of generations past and still colors imaginations everywhere. This billboard brings it all to life, and gives us a real glimpse of America's past," Senator Hillary Clinton said. "The Save America's Treasures program was established by President Clinton for precisely this purpose, to preserve precious historic finds like this billboard. I was thrilled to learn of the billboard's discovery and was so pleased I could help to secure this grant from Save America's Treasures to help preserve this incredible piece of history for future generations. I am committed to doing everything I can to ensure that this unique piece of American heritage will not fade away, but remain as a true "American treasure" for years to come."

The amount of the grant is $52,059, which will pay primarily for the restoration of the antique paper. A dollar-for-dollar matching amount must be raised to pay for archival-quality framing, installation, promotion, and other functions necessary to properly fulfill the curatorial responsibilities which attend a documented national treasure. The Reg Lenna Civic Center will be seeking additional grants and donations to help complete this work. "Given the interest expressed in this project and the level of contribution so far, we're confidant we can raise the matching amount," said Ken Lawton, Civic Center Board President. "It's already been a community endeavor, with several contributions received and countless volunteer hours donated. For example, the Chautauqua Region Community Foundation's initial emergency grant allowed us to have the billboard removed from the wall professionally."

The billboard, as it is restored section by section, and finally in its entirety, will be a major tourist attraction. "We are already receiving calls and inquiries from all over the country from people who want to come and see it, once it's installed in the inner lobby of the Civic Center", said Mr. Schein. The Civic Center stands on the site of the original Allen Opera House where the "Buffalo Bill Combination" performance took place on March 14, 1878.

The segment that has been conserved and which was unveiled today is the upper half of an 8 ft. high poster depicting John Young Nelson, known as Cha-Sha-Sha-O-Pogeo, his given Sioux name. In addition to being a friend of Cody's, Nelson was a scout, trapper, trader, and colorful Old West character who became part of Cody's theater troupe just prior to their 1878 traveling show as it played in cities and small towns throughout the East, including Jamestown. In the days before mass media, shows like this gave people a sometimes real, sometimes mythological glimpse of what life was like in the "Wild West."

William "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a person whose name and exploits were well-known across the United States and around the world. He traveled from coast to coast, often by rail, stopping in big cities and small towns -- sometimes only for a single performance -- and then moving on. In an era before broadcast media, William Cody brought people his theatrical interpretation of the events of the day. Were he alive today we'd describe him as "a media superstar."

Buffalo Bill launched his theatrical career in 1872 and toured the country for 10 years before beginning his Wild West Show. Each year his theater troupe -- the Buffalo Bill Combination -- presented a different show. The show that played in Jamestown on March 14, 1878, was called "May Cody, or Lost and Won" and was loosely based on the events of the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah in 1857.

Juti Winchester, curator of the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, sent a message of congratulations and stated: "The 1878 "Buffalo Bill Combination" billboard has several levels of significance. Its large size affords us more than a glimpse at the visual impact of early advertising used by Cody and his Combination. It has a high degree of historical integrity; we know exactly when and for what program it was posted, and it has lain undisturbed in its original place until its highly documented discovery and removal in 2002. This billboard helps to fill in an informational gap concerning the nature of Cody's theatrical enterprises in the late 1870's. Finally, restoration of the Billboard would make possible an unparalleled opportunity to study and preserve a relic not only pertaining to Buffalo Bill, but to the history of American theater."

Support for the 1878 Buffalo Bill Cody Historic Billboard Project has been received from the following:
National Endowment for the Arts: Save America's Treasures program
New York State:
Assemblyman William Parment
Chautauqua Region Community Foundation
Hultquist Foundation
Karl Peterson Fund
Lamar Outdoor Advertising, Company, Inc.
M & T Bank
Interstate Outdoor Advertising, Inc.
Suzanna Cody
Hiram Cody, Jr.
Eugene Danielson
David and Beth Johnson
Sue and Greg Jones
Christopher Lewis Lamm (great great grandson of John Y. Nelson)
James P. Mc Andrew
Priscilla H. Robbins
David and Betsy Shepherd

also
John M. La Mancuso
Matthew and Carol Smith
Gregory and Susan Moore
H. James and Susan Abdella
Glen M. and Helen G. Ebersole
Greater Buffalo Savings Bank
Additional Assistance gratefully received from: Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming
C. Wesley Cowan: Historic Americana Auctions; Antiques Roadshow
Roger Tory Peterson Institute
Jamestown Community College
Fenton History Center
Jamestown Container Corp., Inc.
Nelson Bros. Lumber and Millwork
Dan Gates: Frame and Glass Shop
Joe Liuzzo: JRL Photography
Kurt Moore
Nathan Arnone: Design 8
Michael Flaxman: Custom Woodworking
Keith Schmitt
Media-Works
Project Manager: Patricia Anzideo
Art Conservator: Laura Schell, Niagara Paper Works, Lockport, NY