In 1914, the First World War began. Although the United States would not be directly involved for three years, the war nevertheless had a huge effect on traveling Wild West shows. Many companies were trapped in Europe and had difficulty escaping. Some Cossacks and other European actors returned to their home nations and never came back. Zack Miller's 101 Ranch show lost most of its livestock to the war effort, too; except for a few highly trained and prized horses, the English government took the company's animals, paying Miller a small fee, and put them to work for the country. Thus, some of the outfits that had been touring Europe came back much smaller and somewhat poorer than they had been when they had left.

The war played a bigger role than that, however. Shows had been increasingly counting on...