BUFFALO BILL: Lockport woman completing restoration on 1878 billboard

By Bill Wolcott/wolcottb@gnnewspaper.com

Buffalo Bill is coming alive in the Town of Lockport. Laura Schell, a member of Buffalo State College’s prestigious Art Conservation program, began restoring the unique 1878 billboard which promotes a “Buffalo Bill” Cody stage show which took place in Jamestown 129 years ago. The paper conservator, who is working at her home, hopes to have the job completed in the fall.

The billboard was discovered by workers beneath the crumbling brick facade of a former hotel on Pine Street in Jamestown in 2002. The restored billboard will be on display at the Reg Lenna Theater.

The only thing that’s left to be done on the montage is the text section.

“It’s very time consuming and really fun. There were just fragments, literally hundreds and hundreds of fragments. It was the world’s largest jigsaw puzzle,” said Schell who has become a fan of the Wild West folk hero. “He was a very interesting man. He was larger-than-life life and very colorful.”

William F. Cody was a prospector, Pony Express rider and Civil War veteran. He hunted buffalo for railroad construction crews and became a folk hero in the dime novels.

Cody would perform with actors in his traveling show, “The New and Thrilling Border Drama.” The billboard in Jamestown is probably the only one in existence that was used.

Construction workers were tearing down the brick facade of an old building that was right down the street from the Lucille Ball museum. Schell was contacted for emergency removal in June 2002.

“As the bricks came down, they could start seeing faces. They could see Buffalo and stopped all work,” Schell said. “They’ve got witnesses saying they saw pieces of it blowing down the street. By the time I got there it was really in rough shape. Pieces were falling off the wall.”

Most of the pieces were found. It was Schell’s job to preserve, protect and put them together.

Jamestown got $52,000 for the Conservation Grant Program through Save Americas Treasures in 2004. Schell estimates the project cost about $100,000.

Schell earned a master’s in museum studies at Syracuse in 1994, and won a spot at Buffalo State’s exclusive restoration school. The Syracuse native met her husband, Brian Schell, at Buff State and earned a second masters.

“There are not that many,” she said of the restoration school. “It’s kind of an obscure career.”

Buffalo State is one of only three degree-granting graduate programs in the country. There are other restorers in Delaware, New York City and Kingston, Ontario.

Her laboratory is in basement of their home. It includes a suction table, a special vacuum cleaner and several funny brushes. One of the brushes is an “Uchibake,” which was handmade in Japan and cost $1,000.

There are about 15 jars with lead weights to hold down the paper while Schell is mending something. Without the weights paper will to buckle up and become warped and wavy.

She can concentrate on her work when her two children, Geoffrey, 6, and Anna, 4, are asleep.

The colorful work is complete. There is a life-size depiction of Buffalo Bill in a buckskin suit and with a rifle. Schell put it back together again, without the benefit of a picture.

The word “Buffalo” was wiped out and Schell is working with someone in Jamestown to get the proper antique font of the words on top.

The centerpiece is the brightest and reddest, painted in orange chrome. “The really colorful pieces are already up,” she said. “I’ve gotten it as clean as I can “It would look unnatural to remove all the dirt, even if you could.”

Visitors can see most of the billboard at Reg Lenna Theater the finished.

Laura has had help from her husband helps and an occasional intern, but she has completed most of the project by herself.

“They have other billboards, but nothing that was actually used,” Laura said. “It is thought to be one of the oldest, if not the oldest existing billboards in the states. It’s a very rare artifact.”

Contact reporter Bill Wolcott at 439-9222, ext. 6246.

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