Artist: ANONYMOUS
Size: 39 5/8 x 28 3/4 in./100.6 x 73 cm
Condition: BSlight tears at folds and edges.
Printer: A. Hoen, Baltimore
Reference: Ref: Buffalo Bill, 95 (var)

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West/Indians Attacking the Overland Mail Coach. ca. 1903.
“The theme of an Indian attack on a stagecoach, mail coach or wagon train was a popular one in the Wild West and in the posters which advertised it. It is the kind of incident which was frequently described in the western dime novels and became more deeply imbedded in our consciousness of the west through motion pictures” (Buffalo Bill, p. 10). The depicted stagecoach is most-likely none other than the “ . . . Deadwood Coach, called the Mail Coach, which is famous on account of having carried the great number of people who lost their lives on the road between Deadwood and Cheyenne . . . The coach was built to be driven by a team of six horses. It was intended to seat twenty-one men–driver and two men beside him, twelve inside and the other six on top. . . . ‘The program states that ‘One of the most terrific of these raids was made by the Sioux Indians, but the assault was successfully repelled, although the two leading horses were killed.’ . . . The Hoen poster, like all others portraying this classic scene, shows an Indian attack, although the coach was as frequently attacked by road agents as well as Indians. And as always, there is the rescue party, headed by Buffalo Bill” (p. 10). Rare!