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Created page with "{{Infobox officeholder | name= Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones | image=Charles "Buffalo" Jones of KS.jpg | office=Kansas State Representative for Finney County | term_start=..."
{{Infobox officeholder
| name= Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones
| image=Charles "Buffalo" Jones of KS.jpg
| office=[[Kansas]] State Representative for Finney County
| term_start=1885
| term_end=1886
| term_start2=1889
| term_end2=1890
| preceded=First state representative from Finney County
| party=[[Independent voter|Independent]]-turned-[[Republican Party|Republican]] (1889)
| birth_date=Janyuary 31, 1844
| birth_place=Tazewell County, [[Illinois]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=October 1, 1919 (aged 75)
| death_place=[[Topeka]], Shawnee County, [[Kansas]]
| occupatio=Rancher
| alma_mater=Illinois Wesleyan University
|spouse=Martha Walton Jones (married 1869, predeceased her husband)
|children=Jessie Jones Phillips<br>
Olive Jones Whitmer<br>
(Two sons died in childhood.)<br>
'''Parents''':<br>
Nicholas and Jane Munden Jones}}
'''Charles Jesse Jones''', known as '''Buffalo Jones''' (January 31, 1844 – October 1, 1919), was an [[United States|American]] frontiersman, [[farmer]], rancher, hunter, conservationist, [[business]]man, and [[politician]] who was one of four co-fouders of Garden City in western [[Kansas]]. The National Archives categorized him as one of the "preservers of the American bison.".<ref name=skyways>{{cite web|url=http://skyways.lib.ks.us/history/cjjones.html|title=C. J. "Buffalo" Jones|publisher=skyways.lib.ks.us|accessdate=September 3, 2010}}</ref>
==Backgrouond==
Jones was born near Pekin in Tazewell County, [[Illinois]], to Noah Nicholas Jones and the former Jane Munden. His father was a farmer and election judge who once hired [[Abraham Lincoln]] as an [[attorney]]. The second oldest of twelve children, Jones was reared on a farm at Money Creek Township in McLean County, in central Illinois near Bloomington. Jones became involved at an early age with the capture of wild animals and kept several as pets. For two years, he attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, but withdrew after being stricken with [[typhoid fever]]. In 1866, at the age of 22, Jones came to Troy in Doniphan County in the northeastern corner of Kansas, to operate nursery of fruit trees.<ref name=hnetmsu>{{cite web|url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-shgape&month=0008&week=c&msg=4ZaC2nPza053qdx7jtInAg&user=&pw=|title=Buffalo Jones|publisher=h-net.msu.edu|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref> In 1869, he wed the former Martha Walton, a descendant of [[England|English]] author and naturalist Izaak Walton (c. 1593-1683) . The couple had two sons, who died in childhood, and two daughters, Jessie and Olive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://knet.asu.edu/archives/?getObject=ualib:117403|title=Charles Jesse Jones Collection|publisher=[[Arizona State University]]|accessdate=November 4, 2010}}</ref>
Soon, Jones left the tree nursery and headed west to Osborne County in north central Kansas, where he built a sod house and began earning his livelihood by hunting bison and capturing wild [[horse]]s. These lengthy hunting trips took Jones into West Texas, where he met the famed lawman Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (1850-1908), who in 1881 killed the desperado, [[Billy the Kid]]) in Fort Sumner in, [[New Mexico]] Territory. Some accounts place Jones on March 18, 1877, at the Battle of Yellow House Canyon (also called the Battle of Thompson's Canyon) near the future [[Lubbock]], [[Texas]]. His success at hunting earned him the sobriquet "Buffalo" Jones. In addition to hunting bison, he tamed buffalo calves and sold them at county fairs.<ref name=hnetmsu/>
==Garden City==
On April 8, 1879, Jones, along with John A. Stevens and the brothers William D. and James R. Fulton, founded Garden City, the seat of government for Finney County in southwestern Kansas. Each man [[Homestead Act (1862)|homesteaded]] 160 acres. The Jones addition lies west of 8th Street.<ref name=skyways/>
Jones was elected the first [[mayor]] of Garden City. In that capacity, he met such western figures as Wyatt Earp and [[Buffalo Bill|William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody]]. He also became involved in [[real estate]], and occasionally drove a team of buffalo calves through the streets of Garden City as a promotional stunt, a practice still followed twice daily with cattle at the [[Fort Worth]] Stockyards].<ref name=hnetmsu/> Jones promoted Garden City and donated land for the first courthouse. He built the Buffalo Jones block on Grant Street, the Herald Building, and the Lincoln and Grant buildings on 8th street, named for Abraham Lincoln and [[U.S. Grant]]. His home at 515 North 9th Street is still used as a residence.<ref name=skyways/>
Jones was the first member from Finney County to the Kansas House of Representatives. He served two interrupted terms, first as an [[Independent voter|Independent]] from District 127 (1885-1886) and then as a [[Republican Party|Republican]] in District 122 (1889-1890).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kslib.info/legislators/membj2.html|title=Kansas Legislature: Past and Present|publisher=kslib.info|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
He organized four irrigation companies to take water one hundred miles from the Arkansas River to aid in the cultivation of 75,000 acres. Jones contracted with the former[Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to build a depot in Garden City. He encouraged the movement of thousands of settlers into the region.<ref name=exhibit>Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones exhibit, Finney County Historical Museum, Garden City, Kansas.</ref>
==Preserving the buffalo==
Meanwhile, Jones started several buffalo herds about Garden City that served as the foundation for both private and public herds in the region. He found only 37 bison in the area. His small herd provided ten animals for a private zoo at a cost of $1,000 each.<ref name=kshs>{{cite web|url=http://www.kshs.org/resource/ks_preservation/kpmarapr02.pdf|title=Bison: the Amazing Animal, Section Saved from Extinction|publisher=Kansas State Historical Society|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
In the spring of 1886, alarmed about the pending extinction of the bison, Jones set forth from Kendall in Hamilton County, Kansas, toward the Texas Panhandle to find remaining animals. He lassoed eighteen calves and took them safely back to Kansas. Such western authors as Emerson Hough (1857-1923) began to notice Jones's contributions. Jones met the pioneer Texas rancher [[Charles Goodnight]], who was crossbreeding buffalo with cattle to produce beefalo, also called cattalo, an otherwise sturdy breed often born sterile. Jones himself later tried producing cattalo. From 1886 to 1889, Jones accumulated more than 50 head, including a buffalo herd he had purchased in [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba]], which required shipment to Garden City. From this herd, Jones sold animals to zoos, parks, or to other ranchers. He personally delivered ten buffalo to a purchaser in [[Liverpool]], [[England]], a task which earned him $10,000, then a large amount of money. Jones was a victim of the [[Panic of 1893]]. A second ranch he purchased in [[Nebraska]] failed, and he sold his remaining herd to ranchers in [[Montana]] and [[California]].<ref name=hnetmsu/>
On September 16, 1893, Jones used two horses to make the run for land into the Cherokee Strip of [[Oklahoma]]. In 1897 to 1898, he traveled to the [[Arctic Circle]], where his party wintered in a cabin they had constructed near the Great Slave Lake. He captured five baby musk oxen, which were afterwards slaughtered by superstitious [[Indians]].<ref name=skyways/> Jones' exploits of how he and his party shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near Great Slave Lake was verified in 1907 by Ernest Thompson Seton and Edward Alexander Preble, when they discovered the remains of the animals near the long abandoned cabin.<ref name=hnetmsu/> In 1899, Jones captured a bighorn sheep for the National Zoo in [[Washington D.C.]] That same year, with Colonel Henry Inman (1837-1899), he published an [[autobiography]], ''Buffalo Jones' Forty Years of Adventure.''<ref name=hnetmsu/>
==Other endeavors==
In 1902, [[U.S. President]] [[Theodore Roosevelt]] appointed his friend Jones as the first game warden at [[Yellowstone National Park]] in [[Wyoming]], where Jones also introduced a buffalo herd. A story at the time told how Jones had roped and spanked the behind of an unruly bear.<ref name=ref name=hnetmsu/> He successfully developed the Yellowstone bison herd with imports from Texas and Montana. Jones's strict rules against alcohol, smoking, and gambling led to dissension with the men working under his supervision, and he was discharged after four years as warden.<ref name=skyways/>
In 1906, Jones began crossbreeding cattalo, these particular buffalo crossbred with Galloway cattle on a government ranch located along the North Rim of the [[Grand Canyon National Park]] in the Kaibab Plateau area of northern [[Arizona]].<ref name=kshs/>
In 1907, Jones introduced the novelist [[Zane Grey]] (a former dentist), to the Southwest. Grey modeled several of his fictitious characters after Jones, including the central figure in the nonfiction ''The Last of the Plainsmen.''<ref name=exhibit/> Grey's nonfiction ''Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon'' is also based on the author's experiences with Jones.<ref name=skyways/>
Late in 1909, "Colonel" Jones, as he was then known, persuaded the [[Massachusetts]] industrialist Charles S. Bird to finance a game-catching expedition to [[Kenya]]. With two cowboys (Marshall Loveless and Ambrose Means),<ref name=hnetmsu/> a guide, and several porters, Jones traveled to [[Nairobi]]. In the Kenyan savanna grass and roped warthogs, a , [[zebra]]s, a [[rhinoceros]], and a [[lion]]ess, which lived at a zoo in New York until 1921. Jones also employed two filmographers who documented his activities. He then showed his films across the United States, including a performance at [[Carnegie Hall]] in [[New York City]], in which he narrated the highlights of his hunting trip.<ref name=exhibit/> He was awarded a medal by the British King [[Edward VII]] for his efforts to preserve animals.<ref name=skyways/> In 1914, Jones organized a second, but unsuccessful, African hunting trip for a [[gorilla]]. The failure to capture a huge gorilla created a breach between Jones and his sponsors. While in theformer Belgian Congo (now [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]), he contracted [[malaria]], was placed on a stretcher, and evacuated on the last departing boat, just as [[World War ]] was declared in Europe.<ref name=exhibit/>
==Death and legacy==
Jones never fully recovered from the malaria. He spent his last years in New Mexico, [[San Antonio]], Texas, and [[Denver]], [[Colorado]]. He patented an irrigation device and sought backers for the project.<ref name=exhibit/> He also envisioned crossbreeding domestic sheep with Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.<ref name=aprofile>{{cite web|url=http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-2-182.pdf|title=Arctic Profiles: Charles Jesse Jones|publisher=pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca|accessdate=September 9, 2010}}</ref>
Jones became ill in 1917, and died two years later of a heart attack at the home of his younger daughter, Olive J. Whitmer, in the Kansas capital city of [[Topeka]]. His other daughter was Jessie J. Phillips of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]], Illinois. Jones was interred beside his wife and sons, all of whom predeceased him, at Valley View Cemetery in Garden City.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/KS-OLD-NEWSPAPERS/2010-07/1278720819|title=Death notice of Charles Jesse Jones|publisher=archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
In a long obituary published in ''[[The New York Times]],'' Jones was described as having been "known throughout America as 'Buffalo Jones', famous cowboy and big game hunter and friend of the late former President Theodore Roosevelt. He and Roosevelt died less than ten months apart in 1919.<ref>''[[The New York Times,'' October 2, 1919.</ref> There is no mention in ''The Times'' that Jones was "the first, great, and highly original preserver-user of North America’s wildlife."<ref name=aprofile/>
In 1959, Jones was posthumously inducted into the [[Hall of Great Westerners]] of the [[National Cowboy Hall of Fame]] in [[Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]]. On July 4, 1979, a permanent exhibit in the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City was dedicated to Jones' memory.<ref name=skyways/> There is a statue of Jones at the Finney County Courthouse, and the Buffalo Jones Elementary School in Garden City bears his name.
The film ''Buffalo Rider'' fictionalizes his life, depicting him as a loner named Jake Jones who rides a tamed buffalo.
Jones's museum exhibits conclude, as follows: "He was a frontier entrepreneur willing to take risk to win rewards. Throughout his life, the capital which he never lost was energy, imagination, and willingness to take personal and financial risks."<ref name=exhibit/>
==Works about Jones==
* {{cite book | title=Lord of Beasts: The Saga of Buffalo Jones|year=1961|author= Robert Easton and Donald Mackenzie Brown|isbn= 0-8165-0281-1}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.paperbackswap.com/Lord-Beasts-Saga-Buffalo-Jones/book/0816502811/|title=Lord of Beasts: The Saga of Buffalo Jones|publisher=University of Arizona Press|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
* {{cite book|title=Buffalo Jones: A True Biography|year=1958|author= Ralph T. Kersey (1880–1972) |publisher=Elliott Printers|location= Garden City, Kansas|lccn=58035851}}<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=4fHlbzs1JIsC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=Ralph+T.+Kersey+and+Buffalo+Jones&source=bl&ots=DwtJ3fvmbv&sig=9gt0VFGVq1E4SoZ9VKMxt6f_MUE&hl=en&ei=K1GCTNLHAougngfhz_Fn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Ralph%20T.%20Kersey%20and%20Buffalo%20Jones&f=false|title=Advertisement: Buffalo Jones|publisher=''Boys' Life''|date=July 1959|accessdate=September 4, 2010|page=61}}</ref><ref>Ralph Kersey also wrote ''The History of Finney County, Kansas''.</ref>
* {{cite book|title=Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa|author= Guy H. Scull}}<ref name=skyways/><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=dyMXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=Guy+Scull+and++Buffalo+Jones&source=bl&ots=9L11pElNDd&sig=ykD5Mfn-ybkUb_xmUt4TXcQtsOg&hl=en&ei=B2qCTP3VNYPGlQewpvCKDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Guy%20Scull%20and%20%20Buffalo%20Jones&f=false|title=Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa|publisher=''[[National Geographic]]'' [[magazine]], Vo. 22, Issue 5|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://relivearth.com/blog/archives/709 Hunter Turned Conservationist]
* {{Find a Grave|9402152|Charles Jesse Jones}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Charles "Buffalo"}}
[[Category:Kansas]]
[[Category:Illinois]]
[[Category:Ranchers]]
[[Category:Business People]]
[[Category:Politicians]]
[[Category:State Representatives]]
[[Category:Republicans]]
| name= Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones
| image=Charles "Buffalo" Jones of KS.jpg
| office=[[Kansas]] State Representative for Finney County
| term_start=1885
| term_end=1886
| term_start2=1889
| term_end2=1890
| preceded=First state representative from Finney County
| party=[[Independent voter|Independent]]-turned-[[Republican Party|Republican]] (1889)
| birth_date=Janyuary 31, 1844
| birth_place=Tazewell County, [[Illinois]], [[United States|USA]]
| death_date=October 1, 1919 (aged 75)
| death_place=[[Topeka]], Shawnee County, [[Kansas]]
| occupatio=Rancher
| alma_mater=Illinois Wesleyan University
|spouse=Martha Walton Jones (married 1869, predeceased her husband)
|children=Jessie Jones Phillips<br>
Olive Jones Whitmer<br>
(Two sons died in childhood.)<br>
'''Parents''':<br>
Nicholas and Jane Munden Jones}}
'''Charles Jesse Jones''', known as '''Buffalo Jones''' (January 31, 1844 – October 1, 1919), was an [[United States|American]] frontiersman, [[farmer]], rancher, hunter, conservationist, [[business]]man, and [[politician]] who was one of four co-fouders of Garden City in western [[Kansas]]. The National Archives categorized him as one of the "preservers of the American bison.".<ref name=skyways>{{cite web|url=http://skyways.lib.ks.us/history/cjjones.html|title=C. J. "Buffalo" Jones|publisher=skyways.lib.ks.us|accessdate=September 3, 2010}}</ref>
==Backgrouond==
Jones was born near Pekin in Tazewell County, [[Illinois]], to Noah Nicholas Jones and the former Jane Munden. His father was a farmer and election judge who once hired [[Abraham Lincoln]] as an [[attorney]]. The second oldest of twelve children, Jones was reared on a farm at Money Creek Township in McLean County, in central Illinois near Bloomington. Jones became involved at an early age with the capture of wild animals and kept several as pets. For two years, he attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, but withdrew after being stricken with [[typhoid fever]]. In 1866, at the age of 22, Jones came to Troy in Doniphan County in the northeastern corner of Kansas, to operate nursery of fruit trees.<ref name=hnetmsu>{{cite web|url=http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-shgape&month=0008&week=c&msg=4ZaC2nPza053qdx7jtInAg&user=&pw=|title=Buffalo Jones|publisher=h-net.msu.edu|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref> In 1869, he wed the former Martha Walton, a descendant of [[England|English]] author and naturalist Izaak Walton (c. 1593-1683) . The couple had two sons, who died in childhood, and two daughters, Jessie and Olive.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://knet.asu.edu/archives/?getObject=ualib:117403|title=Charles Jesse Jones Collection|publisher=[[Arizona State University]]|accessdate=November 4, 2010}}</ref>
Soon, Jones left the tree nursery and headed west to Osborne County in north central Kansas, where he built a sod house and began earning his livelihood by hunting bison and capturing wild [[horse]]s. These lengthy hunting trips took Jones into West Texas, where he met the famed lawman Patrick Floyd Jarvis Garrett (1850-1908), who in 1881 killed the desperado, [[Billy the Kid]]) in Fort Sumner in, [[New Mexico]] Territory. Some accounts place Jones on March 18, 1877, at the Battle of Yellow House Canyon (also called the Battle of Thompson's Canyon) near the future [[Lubbock]], [[Texas]]. His success at hunting earned him the sobriquet "Buffalo" Jones. In addition to hunting bison, he tamed buffalo calves and sold them at county fairs.<ref name=hnetmsu/>
==Garden City==
On April 8, 1879, Jones, along with John A. Stevens and the brothers William D. and James R. Fulton, founded Garden City, the seat of government for Finney County in southwestern Kansas. Each man [[Homestead Act (1862)|homesteaded]] 160 acres. The Jones addition lies west of 8th Street.<ref name=skyways/>
Jones was elected the first [[mayor]] of Garden City. In that capacity, he met such western figures as Wyatt Earp and [[Buffalo Bill|William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody]]. He also became involved in [[real estate]], and occasionally drove a team of buffalo calves through the streets of Garden City as a promotional stunt, a practice still followed twice daily with cattle at the [[Fort Worth]] Stockyards].<ref name=hnetmsu/> Jones promoted Garden City and donated land for the first courthouse. He built the Buffalo Jones block on Grant Street, the Herald Building, and the Lincoln and Grant buildings on 8th street, named for Abraham Lincoln and [[U.S. Grant]]. His home at 515 North 9th Street is still used as a residence.<ref name=skyways/>
Jones was the first member from Finney County to the Kansas House of Representatives. He served two interrupted terms, first as an [[Independent voter|Independent]] from District 127 (1885-1886) and then as a [[Republican Party|Republican]] in District 122 (1889-1890).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kslib.info/legislators/membj2.html|title=Kansas Legislature: Past and Present|publisher=kslib.info|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
He organized four irrigation companies to take water one hundred miles from the Arkansas River to aid in the cultivation of 75,000 acres. Jones contracted with the former[Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad to build a depot in Garden City. He encouraged the movement of thousands of settlers into the region.<ref name=exhibit>Charles Jesse "Buffalo" Jones exhibit, Finney County Historical Museum, Garden City, Kansas.</ref>
==Preserving the buffalo==
Meanwhile, Jones started several buffalo herds about Garden City that served as the foundation for both private and public herds in the region. He found only 37 bison in the area. His small herd provided ten animals for a private zoo at a cost of $1,000 each.<ref name=kshs>{{cite web|url=http://www.kshs.org/resource/ks_preservation/kpmarapr02.pdf|title=Bison: the Amazing Animal, Section Saved from Extinction|publisher=Kansas State Historical Society|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
In the spring of 1886, alarmed about the pending extinction of the bison, Jones set forth from Kendall in Hamilton County, Kansas, toward the Texas Panhandle to find remaining animals. He lassoed eighteen calves and took them safely back to Kansas. Such western authors as Emerson Hough (1857-1923) began to notice Jones's contributions. Jones met the pioneer Texas rancher [[Charles Goodnight]], who was crossbreeding buffalo with cattle to produce beefalo, also called cattalo, an otherwise sturdy breed often born sterile. Jones himself later tried producing cattalo. From 1886 to 1889, Jones accumulated more than 50 head, including a buffalo herd he had purchased in [[Winnipeg]], [[Manitoba]], which required shipment to Garden City. From this herd, Jones sold animals to zoos, parks, or to other ranchers. He personally delivered ten buffalo to a purchaser in [[Liverpool]], [[England]], a task which earned him $10,000, then a large amount of money. Jones was a victim of the [[Panic of 1893]]. A second ranch he purchased in [[Nebraska]] failed, and he sold his remaining herd to ranchers in [[Montana]] and [[California]].<ref name=hnetmsu/>
On September 16, 1893, Jones used two horses to make the run for land into the Cherokee Strip of [[Oklahoma]]. In 1897 to 1898, he traveled to the [[Arctic Circle]], where his party wintered in a cabin they had constructed near the Great Slave Lake. He captured five baby musk oxen, which were afterwards slaughtered by superstitious [[Indians]].<ref name=skyways/> Jones' exploits of how he and his party shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near Great Slave Lake was verified in 1907 by Ernest Thompson Seton and Edward Alexander Preble, when they discovered the remains of the animals near the long abandoned cabin.<ref name=hnetmsu/> In 1899, Jones captured a bighorn sheep for the National Zoo in [[Washington D.C.]] That same year, with Colonel Henry Inman (1837-1899), he published an [[autobiography]], ''Buffalo Jones' Forty Years of Adventure.''<ref name=hnetmsu/>
==Other endeavors==
In 1902, [[U.S. President]] [[Theodore Roosevelt]] appointed his friend Jones as the first game warden at [[Yellowstone National Park]] in [[Wyoming]], where Jones also introduced a buffalo herd. A story at the time told how Jones had roped and spanked the behind of an unruly bear.<ref name=ref name=hnetmsu/> He successfully developed the Yellowstone bison herd with imports from Texas and Montana. Jones's strict rules against alcohol, smoking, and gambling led to dissension with the men working under his supervision, and he was discharged after four years as warden.<ref name=skyways/>
In 1906, Jones began crossbreeding cattalo, these particular buffalo crossbred with Galloway cattle on a government ranch located along the North Rim of the [[Grand Canyon National Park]] in the Kaibab Plateau area of northern [[Arizona]].<ref name=kshs/>
In 1907, Jones introduced the novelist [[Zane Grey]] (a former dentist), to the Southwest. Grey modeled several of his fictitious characters after Jones, including the central figure in the nonfiction ''The Last of the Plainsmen.''<ref name=exhibit/> Grey's nonfiction ''Roping Lions in the Grand Canyon'' is also based on the author's experiences with Jones.<ref name=skyways/>
Late in 1909, "Colonel" Jones, as he was then known, persuaded the [[Massachusetts]] industrialist Charles S. Bird to finance a game-catching expedition to [[Kenya]]. With two cowboys (Marshall Loveless and Ambrose Means),<ref name=hnetmsu/> a guide, and several porters, Jones traveled to [[Nairobi]]. In the Kenyan savanna grass and roped warthogs, a , [[zebra]]s, a [[rhinoceros]], and a [[lion]]ess, which lived at a zoo in New York until 1921. Jones also employed two filmographers who documented his activities. He then showed his films across the United States, including a performance at [[Carnegie Hall]] in [[New York City]], in which he narrated the highlights of his hunting trip.<ref name=exhibit/> He was awarded a medal by the British King [[Edward VII]] for his efforts to preserve animals.<ref name=skyways/> In 1914, Jones organized a second, but unsuccessful, African hunting trip for a [[gorilla]]. The failure to capture a huge gorilla created a breach between Jones and his sponsors. While in theformer Belgian Congo (now [[Democratic Republic of the Congo]]), he contracted [[malaria]], was placed on a stretcher, and evacuated on the last departing boat, just as [[World War ]] was declared in Europe.<ref name=exhibit/>
==Death and legacy==
Jones never fully recovered from the malaria. He spent his last years in New Mexico, [[San Antonio]], Texas, and [[Denver]], [[Colorado]]. He patented an irrigation device and sought backers for the project.<ref name=exhibit/> He also envisioned crossbreeding domestic sheep with Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep.<ref name=aprofile>{{cite web|url=http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic37-2-182.pdf|title=Arctic Profiles: Charles Jesse Jones|publisher=pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca|accessdate=September 9, 2010}}</ref>
Jones became ill in 1917, and died two years later of a heart attack at the home of his younger daughter, Olive J. Whitmer, in the Kansas capital city of [[Topeka]]. His other daughter was Jessie J. Phillips of [[Chicago, Illinois|Chicago]], Illinois. Jones was interred beside his wife and sons, all of whom predeceased him, at Valley View Cemetery in Garden City.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/KS-OLD-NEWSPAPERS/2010-07/1278720819|title=Death notice of Charles Jesse Jones|publisher=archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
In a long obituary published in ''[[The New York Times]],'' Jones was described as having been "known throughout America as 'Buffalo Jones', famous cowboy and big game hunter and friend of the late former President Theodore Roosevelt. He and Roosevelt died less than ten months apart in 1919.<ref>''[[The New York Times,'' October 2, 1919.</ref> There is no mention in ''The Times'' that Jones was "the first, great, and highly original preserver-user of North America’s wildlife."<ref name=aprofile/>
In 1959, Jones was posthumously inducted into the [[Hall of Great Westerners]] of the [[National Cowboy Hall of Fame]] in [[Oklahoma City, Oklahoma]]. On July 4, 1979, a permanent exhibit in the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City was dedicated to Jones' memory.<ref name=skyways/> There is a statue of Jones at the Finney County Courthouse, and the Buffalo Jones Elementary School in Garden City bears his name.
The film ''Buffalo Rider'' fictionalizes his life, depicting him as a loner named Jake Jones who rides a tamed buffalo.
Jones's museum exhibits conclude, as follows: "He was a frontier entrepreneur willing to take risk to win rewards. Throughout his life, the capital which he never lost was energy, imagination, and willingness to take personal and financial risks."<ref name=exhibit/>
==Works about Jones==
* {{cite book | title=Lord of Beasts: The Saga of Buffalo Jones|year=1961|author= Robert Easton and Donald Mackenzie Brown|isbn= 0-8165-0281-1}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.paperbackswap.com/Lord-Beasts-Saga-Buffalo-Jones/book/0816502811/|title=Lord of Beasts: The Saga of Buffalo Jones|publisher=University of Arizona Press|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
* {{cite book|title=Buffalo Jones: A True Biography|year=1958|author= Ralph T. Kersey (1880–1972) |publisher=Elliott Printers|location= Garden City, Kansas|lccn=58035851}}<ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=4fHlbzs1JIsC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=Ralph+T.+Kersey+and+Buffalo+Jones&source=bl&ots=DwtJ3fvmbv&sig=9gt0VFGVq1E4SoZ9VKMxt6f_MUE&hl=en&ei=K1GCTNLHAougngfhz_Fn&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Ralph%20T.%20Kersey%20and%20Buffalo%20Jones&f=false|title=Advertisement: Buffalo Jones|publisher=''Boys' Life''|date=July 1959|accessdate=September 4, 2010|page=61}}</ref><ref>Ralph Kersey also wrote ''The History of Finney County, Kansas''.</ref>
* {{cite book|title=Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa|author= Guy H. Scull}}<ref name=skyways/><ref>{{cite book|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=dyMXAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA407&lpg=PA407&dq=Guy+Scull+and++Buffalo+Jones&source=bl&ots=9L11pElNDd&sig=ykD5Mfn-ybkUb_xmUt4TXcQtsOg&hl=en&ei=B2qCTP3VNYPGlQewpvCKDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Guy%20Scull%20and%20%20Buffalo%20Jones&f=false|title=Lassoing Wild Animals in Africa|publisher=''[[National Geographic]]'' [[magazine]], Vo. 22, Issue 5|accessdate=September 4, 2010}}</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
* [http://relivearth.com/blog/archives/709 Hunter Turned Conservationist]
* {{Find a Grave|9402152|Charles Jesse Jones}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Charles "Buffalo"}}
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