Seen Around Town

A Late Fall Walk Around the Roundup Riverwalk Revealed Yellow Leaves and Blue Skies.

Our clocks took a turn, and now we’re into earlier dark nights and brighter mornings. Daylight saving time isn’t observed in Hawaii and most of Arizona. The territories of American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands also don’t observe daylight saving time, and the bill to make it permanent would allow them to remain exempt.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the U.S. started using daylight saving time in 1918 during World War I. Germany had started observing the practice in 1916 to try to conserve fuel with an extra hour of daylight in the evening, and other European nations followed suit as the war dragged on. For 2024, daylight saving time ended on Sunday, Nov. 3, at 2 a.m. local time where observed.

Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley visited Roundup the afternoon of October 27 when the Friends of the Library hosted Cheryl Heser from Forsyth. Her living history presentation portrayal of Annie Oakley gave some little known information about a well-known historic figure from Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West shows.

Annie was born in Darke County, Ohio as Phoebe Ann Mosey in 1860. Her father died when she was just five years old. Her mother remarried, but then her stepfather died as well. Phoebe Ann learned to shoot to hunt and provide food for her impoverished family. At one point she was sent to the Darke County Infirmary to live and work. She learned to sew from a friend and sewed all her own clothes and costumes for the remainder of her life. (Cheryl Heser also created her own costume for this presentation, as she does for all her living history talks.)

Phoebe Ann returned home at age 13 and continued to shoot and hunt. Her meat was sold to the Katezenberger brothers in Greenville, Ohio, who then sold it to restaurants in Cincinnati. She earned enough eventually money to pay off the mortgage on the family farm.

A promoter in Cincinnati learned of her prowess with a rifle. She began to enter shooting competitions which she handily won. Along the way, she met Frank Butler, whom she married at age 21.

She stated she won her husband by outshooting him!

Phoebe Ann renamed herself Annie Oakley, using her middle name and the name of a town near her birthplace. She met Chief Sitting Bull who called her ‘Little Sure Shot’, a name used in advertising from then on, and they remained friends for life.

Annie Oakley joined the “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World Show” in 1885. She became its star with her husband, Frank Butler, as her assistant. In 1887 the show traveled to London, England for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The show traveled to Paris and other locations in Europe in 1889. Buffalo Bill wanted to give images of the American cowgirl, and show how to handle guns safely.

Annie Oakely is remembered as a western folk hero, an American legend, and icon. During her career, she maintained her dignity and propriety while proving that she was superior to most men on the shooting range. Annie and Frank stayed with Buffalo Bill Cody’s show until 1901. Serious health problems led to them retiring from the constant traveling.

Annie Oakley and Frank Butler both died in 1926 within three weeks of each other. They were married for 50 years.

You can read more about her here: https://centerofthewest.org/explore/buffalo-bill/research/annie-oakley/

Or better yet, go to Cody, WY and visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, a great museum.

 

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