Pistol Pete

(Frank Eaton, 1860-1958)


Today, in the year 2010, we aren’t really that far removed from the old American West. It was a legendary time, a time of Cowboys and Indians. Sparsely populated, there was little established law enforcement or other institutions we take for granted which promotes civilization as we understand it. Guns were plentiful and human life was cheap. The Civil War, which introduced several undesirable things into American culture, had just completed. It introduced lawlessness, despair in the populace, internal migration and movement of the people, and an abundance of handguns, the new weapon of choice for killing people. People moving into the American West were often at the mercy of cold blooded killers.

Into this, Frank Eaton was born. Born October 26, 1860, in Hartford, Connecticut, his family moved to Twin Mounds, Kansas, when he was 8 years old. Not long after the move his father was murdered by six former Confederates, two sets of brothers named Kempsey and Ferber. They had served during the Civil War with the Quantrill Raiders and were comfortable with violence against unarmed and defenseless people. The Raiders had sacked Lawrence, Kansas, during the war, burning it to the ground and killing indiscriminately anyone who got in their way. After the war they called themselves the “Regulators” and as such regulated this husband and father by murdering him.

A friend of his father, Mose Beaman, taught Frank to use a handgun soon after his father’s death. Beginning his training at the age of 8, Beaman also did more than simply teach young Frank to handle a gun. He taught him to hate and seek revenge on the men who had killed his father. By the time he was 15 years old, Frank had become adept at the use of a handgun and had reached the status of being called Pistol Pete by the U.S. Army. He went to Ft. Gipson in Indian Territory and even though he was too young to enlist he did get further training in the use of guns. In contests he was always on top, the best gunman at the fort and hence the name and honor which would always be with him.

During his life Frank Eaton served as a scout for the Army, worked as a cowboy and lived through and participated in those years which characterized the Indian Wars in which the Indians made their final stand against what they saw as an intrusion by the government and the populace of whites into their traditional lands. He also served as a U.S. Marshall in Indian Territory, working under the authority of Judge Isaac C. Parker, the “Hanging Judge” whose office and court were situated in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. By 1887, according to Eaton, he had killed five of the men who murdered his father and he only missed killing the sixth man because that one had been killed by someone else in a card game.

Eaton was in the land run which resulted in the settlement of Oklahoma and Indian Territories and eventual statehood for Oklahoma. He settled in the small town of Perkins, Oklahoma, where he was the local sheriff, grew old surrounded by a large family and developed into the caricature and character normally associated with him. Frank Eaton died April 8, 1958, at the age of 97.

In December 25, 1890, when Eaton was 30 years old, and living in Perkins, the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature created the small land grant college known as Oklahoma Territorial Agriculture and Mechanical (A&M) College. When Oklahoma became a state in 1907, the word “Territorial” was dropped from its name and it became Oklahoma A&M College. It continued with this name until 1957.

In their earlier years their teams were called “agriculturists,” “aggies” and “farmers.” They claimed a moniker of “Princeton on the Prairie” and used the tiger as a mascot. Thus, their colors were orange and black, mimicking the stripes on the tiger. In the early and middle 1920s people began calling their players “cowboys” for reasons unknown. And then in about 1923 the school gave serious consideration to creating a new mascot and replacing the tiger with something else. As the cowboy had become a popular designation, perhaps they were attempting to find a mascot that would reflect the cowboy and the cowboy culture.

In 1923 Frank Eaton was riding a horse in an Armistice Day parade in Stillwater, the home of Oklahoma A&M. Pictures of him clearly show a colorful character and some of the Aggies decided he would make a good mascot. They could thereby better align themselves with the American West, the days of cowboys and Oklahoma’s land run. Frank Eaton had been a part of all of that.

Even though there was a popular demand to make Frank Eaton the mascot for the college, it was not until 1958 that “Pistol Pete” was adopted as the school’s mascot, probably at the time it became a university and changed its name for the last time to Oklahoma State University. The university, however, did not approve, adopt and license the caricature of the present day “Pistol Pete” until 1984.

(Pistol Pete, official mascot of Oklahoma State University.)

There are two other schools that use “Pistol Pete” as a mascot, New Mexico State and Wyoming. Both of them consider Frank Eaton as the inspiration for their Pistol Pete but neither of them use a likeness of OSU’s mascot.

(Pistol Pete of New Mexico State.)

(Pistol Pete of Wyoming University.)

Wyoming once had a caricature similar to that of OSU but neither at the present time share anything other than the name and the person on whom the name is based. It is curious since there is little credible evidence that Eaton had any significant contact with either state. His life, from at least age 15, was centered in Indian Territory, Oklahoma Territory and the State of Oklahoma. And he had an interest in Oklahoma A&M in Stillwater. Clearly, OSU should be and is the guardian of Eaton’s alter ego, Pistol Pete.