“In all the years of day parades, devoted to absurdity pure and simple, nothing funnier has ever been seen than the burlesque pageant of Doctor Cutter’s Wildest Western Show originated and carried out to exemplify the untamable and unquenchable vim of Mobile flat marksmanship.”
The Daily Register so described the inaugural parade of the Comic Cowboys in 1884 — an overwhelming success. In the year leading up to the parade, a young Mobilian named Dave Levi awoke from a deep sleep, jumped up and right away began to plan a parade for all, something different from the elite affairs hosted by the few Mardi Gras organizations of the time. He wanted to use humor, wit and satire to draw attention to the issues of the day in the hopes to both entertain and leave the citizens thinking.
Samuel Eichold, a devoted Comic Cowboys historian, in a book marking the 100th anniversary of the mystic society, wrote, “With scant funds cajoled from a few friends, Dave organized the first irreverent parade with a group of similarly motivated Mobilians, and proclaimed the birth of a different kind of Mardi Gras hoopla.”
History tells that the Comic Cowboys emerge each Carnival season from their den in Wragg Swamp, an area which was later filled in to construct Springdale Plaza and Bel Air Mall. “Out of this miasma,” Eichold writes, “has erupted the Copeland Gang, 12-foot alligators, skunks, big brown bears and a varied assortment of flying creatures.” And so, too, come the Cowboys…