Comeback Kid

48” x 84”

Vintage Ephemera Collage Board with Resin 

Prior to the 19th century, North American Bison ranged from 30-60 million. In 1806, near the great falls of the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis reported standing among ten thousand buffalo extending two miles in every direction.

After the civil war, the Homestead Act pushed Americans westward, looking for new beginnings. With that, a new war arose with Native American Indians. President Grant looked to his commander of the U.S. Army, General William Tecumseh Sherman to devise a plan that would force the natives onto the reservations. Sherman advocated the bison slaughter, which would annihilate the primary food source of natives forcing them onto the reservations.

By 1872, five thousand buffalo were being killed each day, as ten thousand hunters poured onto the plains killing buffalo for their hides, tongues
and bones. A railway engineer said it was possible to walk 100 miles along the Santa Fe railroad by stepping from one bison carcass to another.

By 1884, the population reached its lowest point, with roughly 325 wild bison remaining in the U.S.

Around 30 million buffalo were killed in 75 years.
By the turn of the century, conservationists saved the bison from the brink of extinction. William Hornaday, Ernest Harold Baynes, President Teddy Roosevelt and Charles & Mary Ann Goodnight are just a few pioneers who changed public opinion and persuaded the federal government to act.

Today there are roughly 500,000 bison in the U.S.,
of which 5,000 are in Yellowstone National Park. While the buffalo made a comeback, struggles for Native American Indians continue to this day.