At his next “Local Lore” program, Bob Richard welcomes Robyn Cutter, archivist at the Park County Archives, to join him as the two briefly discuss early day western movies. Cutter then introduces the silent film “The Rider of the Painted Horse,” which was filmed in the Cody area in 1925. The program takes place Thursday, Oct. 19 at noon in the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Coe Auditorium. All programs in the series are free and open to the public.

The movie, filmed on location at the Hargreaves Ranch on Cottonwood Creek, 4 miles northwest of Cody, was produced by New York’s Carl H. Theobald. Shot by well-known local photographer F.J. Hiscock, it starred a local cast of around 200 people, with Will Richard, Bob Richard’s uncle, starring as the villain. Other locals of note in the cast included Josh Deane, Clarence Williams, George Inman and Verne Stahl. Theobald’s wife, Jane Tudor, played the damsel.

Although “The Rider of the Painted Horse” did premiere at the Cody Theater after its completion, it never made it onto the big screen nationally. In October 2022, Cutter spearheaded a partnership among Big Horn Cinema, the Park County Archives, and the Center of the West for a free showing of the 50-minute film at Big Horn Cinema. This “Local Lore” program offers another chance to see an early western film in which local actors and the local scenery play prominent roles.

The “Local Lore with Bob Richard” series is hosted and coordinated by the Center’s McCracken Research Library and takes place every other month. The final talk for this year takes place Dec. 21 and explores the history of Pahaska Tepee, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s hunting lodge near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

For more information on Center of the West programs and events, visit centerofthewest.org/events. 

Cutter is the archivist at the Park County Archives in Cody. She grew up in Minnesota and earned a bachelor’s degree in interior design from North Dakota State University, and a master’s degree in Historic Preservation from Middle Tennessee State University. For a large part of her career, she directed Main Street programs, focusing on the revitalization of downtowns.

Since moving with her family to Cody in 2002, Cutter has worked for the Cody Enterprise newspaper and has managed retail stores. After studying digital preservation at Northwest College in Powell she volunteered and then worked for the Buffalo Bill Center of the West for a time digitizing collections before starting her tenure with the Park County Archives.

A lifelong Wyoming resident, Richard’s varied experiences are pure West. He worked at guest ranches, guided horse and hunting trips, ranched, and for 37 years owned and operated Grub Steak Expeditions, personally touring thousands of visitors from around the world through Yellowstone and its ecosystem.

Educated at the universities of Wyoming, Arizona and California (Fresno), Richard has served as a teacher and school administrator, a decorated U.S. Marine Corps pilot in Vietnam, and, for 21 years, helped coordinate American Red Cross service and relief activities in the western United States.

Richard is the author of several books on the Cody and Yellowstone area, as well as his own family’s deep roots in the region. They feature his own photographs and often those of his father Jack Richard and uncle Ned Frost. For information on Bob’s photography and his published books, visit bobrichardphotography.com.