Top of page

Collection Meeting of Frontiers

Grand Duke Alexis

This essay was published in 2000 as part of the original Meeting of Frontiers website.

The third son of Emperor Alexander II, Grand Duke Alexis toured the United States in 1871-72 in the most important Russian official visit to America to that time. This trip highlighted a warm contemporary relationship between Russia and the United States and became a major public-relations event--Alexis was continually greeted by large crowds and newspaper reporters who published mostly favorable accounts of the Grand Duke in the local and national press. Although he toured a good part of America, the high point of his trip was his sojourn in the West. There this European nobleman engaged in rugged American diversions, hunting buffalo with General Sheridan and Buffalo Bill and thrilling at riding and shooting demonstrations by Sioux Indians--all to the delight of an enraptured public.

Grand Duke Alexis's Tour of the United States

Timeline

  1. November 19, 1871

    Arrives at New York on the frigate Svetlana.

  2. November 22, 1871

    Presented to President Grant at Washington.

  3. November-December 1871

    Visits New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other cities on the East Coast, in the Midwest, and in Canada.

  4. December 31, 1871-January 1, 1872

    Visits Chicago, "Phoenix City of the West," and tours ruins of the Great Fire, stockyards, and a pork processing plant.

  5. January 2-11, 1872

    Visits Milwaukee and St. Louis. At Milwaukee the Russian Consul-General Bodisko makes a speech, saying, "now I am in the West for the first time. The saying is true, 'Westward the star of empire takes its way.'. . . In Russia it is eastward that the star of empire takes its way, and the two nations will soon shake hands across Bering Strait".

    His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexis in the United States of America, 1872. LC Rare Books Collection.

  6. January 12-16, 1872

    Goes buffalo hunting with Buffalo Bill Cody, General Custer, General Sheridan, Spotted Tail, and Sioux Indians on the plains of Nebraska; the Sioux put on a powwow and war dance for the Grand Duke.

  7. January 17-19, 1872

    Visits Denver; attends ball sponsored by the Pioneer Club; visits mines.

  8. January 20-21, 1872

    Hunts buffalo on the Colorado plains; kills five.

  9. January 22, 1872

    En route to Topeka, Kansas shoots buffalo from train.

  10. February 22, 1872

    Departs America from Pensacola, Florida on the Svetlana.