Opens Saturday, June 15
After Gordon “Pawnee Bill” Lillie opened his first Wild West show in 1888, he took his stunt-laden, entertaining vision of the American West on the road to numerous cities around the world. These days, audiences head for Pawnee, Okla., for Pawnee Bill’s Original Wild West Show, an annual summer attraction filled with trick shooters, trick riders, Native American powwow dancers, horses, chuck wagons and more hearkening back to the era of a quickly modernizing country looking back to its own rugged past.
This year’s show opens at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 15, with two more dates on June 22 and 29 at the Pawnee Bill Ranch, 1141 Pawnee Bill Road in Pawnee. If you get to town early, make sure to catch the Wild West show cast parade at 4 p.m. and check out the museum and mansion from 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. on show days. Also look for a medicine show, blacksmiths, gunfighter and sharp shooter demonstrations and more prior to the show. Regular tickets are $8-$14 and box seats are $125-$150 per box depending on if tickets are purchased in advance or on show days. The Friends of the Pawnee Bill Ranch Association will also serve a meal at 5 p.m. Call 918.762.2513 for specific details and to purchase tickets. More about the show is available at www.okhistory.org.
