Pistol Pete!
You probably know him in this form...
But did you know he was a real person?
His name was not Pete, either.
It was Frank Eaton.
I thought he was Oklahoma born, too, and was surprised to learn he was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
Frank was a young boy when his father was murdered by six former Confederate soldiers. Then living in Kansas, Frank decided to avenge his father's death. So he came to Fort Gibson to learn how to shoot.
He earned the nickname "Pistol Pete" due to his excellence in marksmanship. He bragged himself that he could "shoot faster than Buffalo Bill."
He has a kind face in my opinion.
According to Wikipedia. "Eaton was said to have been given a cross by a girlfriend, which he wore around his neck and which saved his life when it deflected a bullet during a gunfight. He would write later that, 'I’d rather have the prayers of a good woman in a fight than half a dozen hot guns: she’s talking to Headquarters'."
In 1923, a group of OSU students decided that Pete would make a great mascot and here we are.
P.S. He did kill 5 of the men who shot his father to death. He went to the funeral of the 6th perpetrator, just to ensure he was really deceased. Frank did all this at age 16, 8 years after the death of his father.
No comments:
Post a Comment