82 DISTINCTLY OKLAHOMA I NOVEMBER 2010

By David Althouse

FRANK “PISTOL PETE” EATON

(Ed. Note: Frank Eaton was known for his “salty” language,

and, to quote our author, “in the company of men he ‘cursed

like a sailor.’” Several excerpts have been taken from his

book, so be forewarned that the language is Mr. Eaton’s.)

Eaton rides in the 1932 ’89er Parade in Guthrie.

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PEOPLE

His likeness serves as the basis for the Oklahoma State University Cowboy mascot, but there’s more to Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton than

an over-sized cowboy hat atop an oversized head. In a story begging to be told on the big screen, Eaton stormed out of his boyhood to avenge the murder of his father, becoming a bona fi de legend of the American West, and the single most well known mascot from the state of Oklahoma.

Frank Eaton, the man many of us know as Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton, grew up quick.

To appreciate his story, we fi rst must recognize that, at the age of 7, he beheld with his own eyes the cold-blooded murder of his father. This early, heart-wrenching tragedy cast its shadow over the next 90 years of Eaton’s long life.

After the War Between the States, Eaton’s father moved the family from Hartford, Connecticut to Osage County, Kansas, near a place called Rock Springs. The Eaton home stood on the ruins of an old hotel burned by William Clarke Quantrill and his pro-Confederate guerrillas while on a raid of the town of Lawrence. The home stood roughly 100 yards off the old Santa Fe Trail, placing it in close proximity to countless travelers on their way either east or west.

Vigilantes on the Union side and Regulators on the Confederate side, both backed with hired gunmen, fought for control in this area of eastern Kansas, a region simmering with post-war tension. Young Frank stood witness to the occasional violence that ensued, but these events in no way prepared him for the gruesome tragedy that would help defi ne the remainder of his life.

One evening, after Mrs. Eaton had retired to bed, Frank and his pro-Union father, himself a member of the Vigilantes, heard approaching riders. Young Frank ran to the door and opened it.

In his book, “Pistol Pete: Veteran of the Old West,” Eaton told what happened next.

“A man called for Father, who was right behind me. There was a burst of gunfi re and my father fell to the fl oor with six bullets through him. I fell on his body screaming. One of the men got off his horse and pulled me away. He kicked me and hit me with his riding whip. Then he emptied his gun into my father’s body.

The man behind the mascot

(Left) Frank Eaton inhis colorful garb.

84 DISTINCTLY OKLAHOMA I NOVEMBER 2010

“PISTOL PETE”

“Then they galloped away; but I had seen their faces. They were the four Campseys and the two Ferbers.”

Mose Beaman, a Vigilante friend of the Eatons, vowed to help the now-widowed Mrs. Eaton and her son with the day-to-day work around the home. One night, when Beaman was ready to leave, he pulled Frank aside, looked him in the eyes, and said, “My boy, may an old man’s curse rest upon you if you do not try to avenge your father!”

To which, Frank replied, “I will, Mr. Beaman! Just as soon as I am big enough and learn more about guns and shooting.”

Beaman took care of that. He gave Frank a navy revolver, taught him how to mold bullets and load a cap-and-ball gun, and provided basic instruction in the use of a sidearm. After considerable practice, Eaton demonstrated to Beaman his newfound prowess with the weapon. Beaman was impressed with Eaton’s ability to use either hand successfully when fi ring, his ability to aim without looking down the sites, and his deadly accuracy.

Eaton’s mother eventually remarried and the family relocated to the Cherokee Nation of northeast Indian Territory, roughly three miles south of present-

day Bartlesville. The family leased land from a Cherokee man by the name of Jesse Thompson. Thompson gave Eaton

his fi rst .45 Colt revolver along with a supply of shells – the fi rst time the young gunman had seen shells. His cap-and-ball days were over.

Eaton spent most of the rest of his life in and around Indian Territory, now the state of Oklahoma. Of course, he never forgot the vow he made to Mose Beaman. Avenging his father’s death was his reason for living.

At age 15, roughly eight years after losing his father, Eaton rode into Fort Gibson, a cavalry fort in the Cherokee Nation, to learn more about handling a gun. While there, Eaton took on the fort’s best sharpshooters in shooting contests. The cavalrymen proved superior in rifl e skills, but Eaton’s pistol work dazzled everyone, including the fort’s commanding

offi cer, Colonel Copinger, who gave the gunman the nickname of “Pistol Pete.”

Now, a reckoning was at hand. Eaton set out on the prowl for six men

made up of the Campseys and Ferbers.The fi rst man to answer Eaton’s social

call was Shannon Campsey, the man who had emptied his gun into the body of young Frank’s father. While standing on the front porch of his one-room log house in the Cherokee Nation, Campsey raised his rifl e on the approaching Eaton – but just a bit too slowly.

It was Doc Ferber’s destiny to follow his friend Campsey. Having found a group of rustlers branding stolen cattle near California Creek in present-day Nowata County, Eaton rode in for a closer look.

“As I got to the head of the ravine a horseman rode up to meet me,” Eaton said. “There was something familiar in the look of him and when, at a distance of about 30 feet, he stopped and hailed me, I knew who he was!”

But Ferber didn’t recognize Eaton.“Hello boy,” Ferber said. “What are

you doing here, and what do you want?”“I just want you, Doc Ferber,” Eaton

replied, “and I am sure glad I have found you.”

“Who the hell are you anyhow?” Ferber said. “And how do you know who I am?”

Eaton answered, “I am Frank Eaton and I ought to know you, Doc Ferber, for you are one of the men who killed my father. Fill your hand! You son of a bitch!”

Ferber never stood a chance against Eaton, for the young gunman had been “working on that draw for years, just to use at this moment.”

Eaton found Doc’s brother, John Ferber, third on his list, one day too late in Southwest City, Missouri, killed the night before at a poker table after demonstrating a noticeable lack of profi ciency at stealing cards.

As for Jim and Jonce Campsey, Eaton tied off that bundle in a two-for-one deal, facing them both outside their house not far from Southwest City.

“They were both in front of me and I could watch every move they made,” Eaton said. “I saw Jonce reach for his gun. Then Jim swung his rifl e around but he didn’t have time to fi re it, and Jonce’s gun shot into the ground as he fell.”

On Eaton’s list of distinguished gentlemen, Wylie Campsey found his place sixth and last – dead last. Eaton fi nished him in a dramatic shootout inside a New Mexico saloon, but not before receiving gunshot wounds to his leg and left arm.

So, by 1887, Eaton had kept his word to Mose Beaman, gunning down fi ve of the six who murdered his father, and escaping an “old man’s curse.” Along the way, he became a Deputy United States Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas (an area that included present-day Oklahoma), under the authority of Judge Isaac Parker out of Fort Smith. He received the commission in the fi eld by Chris Adams, another Deputy United States Marshal who, like Eaton, pursued the Campseys and the Ferbers.

In the years after the “great reckoning,” Eaton became known as a top hand and lawman across Oklahoma Territory and beyond, herding cattle for the Owens Cattle Company out of Vinita, riding for the Muleshoe and J A Ranch outfi ts in Texas, and troubleshooting for the Cattlemen’s Association.

Civilization eventually swallowed the great cattle trails, and the days of settling matters with a six-gun passed. In the minds of those traversing the

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The future OSU mascot

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countryside with the aid of an internal combustion engine, the days of the Old West stood as a distant memory – but not if you lived in Perkins, Oklahoma, the small community south of Stillwater, where Eaton lived the second half of his storied life.

Up and down the streets of Perkins walked the living, breathing western icon, a colorful relic straight out of the pages of Oklahoma’s pre-statehood history. The late DeWayne Luster, born in Perkins in 1923, recalled that Eaton, sporting long braided hair, a pair of six-shooters, and nearly always clad in a ten-gallon hat, operated a blacksmith shop on the west side of present-day Main Street, on a spot currently covered by a grocery store parking lot.

In an interview before his passing in December of 2009, Luster said, “I believe his blacksmith shop was one of the last such establishments in the United States. Eaton’s many friends and fans often paid visits to his shop.”

For these guests, Eaton sometimes gave quick-draw demonstrations, setting up wooden matchsticks as his targets, and then blasting them from a distance of about 20 feet, no small feat using period sidearms.

“There were many times,” Luster said, “that a quiet, peaceful day in Perkins was interrupted by the blast of his six-guns and then the sound of his loud laugh, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ after each demonstration. I watched Frank give that shooting demonstration many times, and never once did he miss a matchstick. He was deadly with those guns.”

Waterwell digging, another frontier art in which Eaton proved expert, provided additional income to the old gunfi ghter and lawman, Luster said.

While digging, Eaton often employed the use of dynamite to break through layers of rock deep in the ground. Secured at the end of a rope, Frank would descend into the dark abyss, place the dynamite in a strategic location, light the fuse, and then quickly begin his ascent to escape the coming blast.

“My father asked Frank if the dynamite had ever exploded before he made it all the way up,” Luster said. “Frank replied, ‘Ho! Ho! Ho! Ah God, yes!’”

Luster’s father asked, “Really, Frank?

What happened then?”“Ah God!” Eaton said, “I got muh

damned backside fi lled with sand rock!” When describing Eaton, Luster

paints the picture of a deadly accurate pistolero and one-of-a-kind storyteller, nearly always dressed larger-than-life in his boots and Stetson hat.

“He was quite the showman and comedian, and he loved the attention,” Luster said. “He could’ve worked for any wild west show.”

One wonders how often the gunman’s mind drifted back to the dreadful scene of his father’s death, and if his humorous and larger-than-life persona helped serve as cover for a scarred soul. Folks on the receiving end of Eaton’s one-liners and tall tales may never have contemplated that possibility, as such refl ection struggles for a place amidst fascination and wonderment.

Eaton possessed a Victorian-era sense of propriety when recounting his many tales from those earlier days, Luster said. In the company of men he “cursed like a sailor” when recounting his stories, omitting nothing, however shocking, in the telling. In front of the opposite sex, Eaton cleaned up the language and modifi ed even the storylines to avoid offending delicate sensibilities.

The story of how Eaton’s likeness became the basis for the Oklahoma State University mascot begins in 1923 during an Armistice Day Parade in Stillwater. A group of students noticed the colorfully bedecked cowboy astride his horse in the parade and decided he should replace the orange and black Tiger then serving as mascot, since no such animals roamed the mountains and plains of Oklahoma as far as anyone knew. The university adopted the “Pistol Pete” likeness in 1958 and offi cially sanctioned him as a licensed symbol 26 years later, in 1984, forever safeguarding at least the appearance of the old gunfi ghter.

Among the nation’s major colleges and universities, OSU enjoys the special distinction of possessing a mascot based on a single historical individual.

“Based on a real-life cowboy and lawman, Pistol Pete is one of America’s

most unique and beloved mascots,” said OSU President Burns Hargis. “We think he is the best mascot in the land, and we were delighted a national ESPN contest agreed. Pete is loyal, doesn’t back down, and always shoots straight. He is a mascot with true grit, and he is the number one cowboy at OSU.”

Eaton died at his home in Perkins on April 8, 1958 at age 97, leaving behind a narrative of vengeance discharging fi re and smoke to this day.

To be sure, some modern-day cynics question the authenticity of Eaton’s story of Old West bravado and revenge, but they have offered little or no revisionist history to set the record straight. For now, this fact places Eaton’s story in stark contrast to such tales as the Lincoln County War and Gunfi ght at the O.K. Corral, each prey to countless tomes of historical revisionism.

It’s doubtful future historical fi ndings will subtract from the legend of Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton.

It might do the opposite.Like many a stone-faced yet polite

survivor of that vanished era on the American frontier, Eaton may have taken to the grave more tales of blood and swash than he ever told while alive.

Not wanting to offend, the old timer may have held back the really good stuff.

OSU Mascot Pistol Pete entertains visitors at the OKC Zoo