"The West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles, and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind." (Buffalo Bill Cody)

Space may be the final frontier, but no frontier has ever captured the American imagination like the Wild West, which still evokes images of dusty cowboys, outlaws, gunfights, gamblers, and barroom brawls over 100 years after the West was settled. A constant fixture in American pop culture, the 19th century American West continues to be vividly and colorfully portrayed not just as a place but as a state of mind. In Charles River Editors' Legends of the West series, listeners can get caught up to speed on the lives of America's most famous frontier figures in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

The Wild West has made legends out of many men and women through the embellishment of their stories, but it was Buffalo Bill Cody who truly brought the Wild West to life and provided the images that people still associate with the 19th century West today. Though he had a long career that spanned service in the American Civil War, trapping, and even a stint with the Pony Express, Buffalo Bill eventually became synonymous with his world-famous Wild West Show. By depicting stereotypical Western scenes like riding the Pony Express and gunfights between cowboys and Indians, Buffalo Bill became one of the men most responsible for establishing how the public came to remember the Wild West.