Descendents of Floyd & Grace Lytle

Ken Thompson's Unofficial Medicine Lodge Website

This page is devoted to stories about things that happened in the Gyp Hills. Some of them may be true and some of them may not be true. You be the judge. Table of Contents Talking with William There ain't no gold in them Gyp Hills The Early Dwellings at the Medicine River Read this story first to understand the story about the Cavalry. The Cavalry comes to town The Great Blizzard of '71 Medicine Lodge needs Buffalo Bill! The Day Muck-Muck Got His Wish Deacon Jim The Chestnut Mare June, 2007: How Willie the Cripple got his nickname

By the 1890's the new country of The United States of America was seeing lots of changes. The transcontinental railroad had connected both coasts with modern transportation allowing a person to travel coast to coast in less than two weeks. Alexander Graham Bell had invented the telephone and it was possible for a person on the west coast to talk directly to a person on the east coast. Most of the land from coast to coast was divided up into states except for a few Indian territories. The Old West was almost gone.

Fortunately a few respected names still kept the Old West alive. In the 1870's P.T. Barnum was traveling the country with "The Greatest Show on Earth". William Cody was given the nickname "Buffalo Bill" in the 1860's while he was supplying the Kansas Pacific Railroad with buffalo meat. In the 1870's Buffalo Bill acted in some stage plays (not for Barnum) and in 1883 he opened the Wild West Show in Omaha with real cowboys and real Indians portraying the Old West. They performed sharpshooting tricks, horseback riding and other forms of entertainment, in a circus-like atmosphere.

Our story begins in Medicine Lodge in Springtime of 1883, late on a Thursday afternoon in April. Willie Johnson and the sheriff were sitting in their usual chairs in front of the general store, waiting on the stage to come in from Wichita. The sheriff heard a horse whinny and looked up for the stage, but a buckboard came pulling up Main Street, with a man and woman in the front. The man driving the buckboard noticed the sheriff's badge, and pulled up in front of the general store.

"Sheriff, where can a man and wife get a good room for the night?"

"Just a block to the south on the corner you'll find the hotel. What brings ya to town?"

"I'm Frank Butler and this is my wife Phoebe. We're on our way north for a business deal," the man explained as he shook the sheriff's hand.

"Glad to meet you, mam," the sheriff said to the young lady. He was startled a bit when he noticed several .22 rifles in the wagon. He noticed a full box marked '.22 bullets' in the back of the wagon too. "Now, ifn'n you don't mind me askin', what's all them guns for? As the sheriff I gotta keep track of what goes on in this town," he said with a stern voice.

"My wife Phoebe is a sharpshooter. She does shootin' tricks," Frank answered.

"When I was a little girl growing up in Ohio I learned to shoot at coyotes and wolves, and I hunted quite a few buffalo up until we killed 'em all," the young lady answered. She stood up on the floorboards of the buckboard, picked up her rifle, aimed at a sparrow on the roof of the bank, shot, and the bird fell to the ground. The door of the bank opened up, and the banker came running out.

Willie broke out laughing as the sheriff said, "It's okay, there ain't no bank robbery going on. It's just Miss Phoebe shootin' at a sparrow."

The banker laughed too and walked up and stuck out his hand. As he shook hands with Frank, Phoebe climbed down out of the wagon. Both the sheriff and Willie were surprised to see that Phoebe was short, maybe only 5 feet tall. "That's some mighty powerful shootin' for a woman of such small stature, if you don't mind me saying so," the banker said.

"Oh, I get that all the time. Some folks call me Little--," Phoebe was cut off in middle sentence.

"--Phoebe, now remember, we're just visiting," Frank cut in, shaking his head no to Phoebe. "She's Phoebe Ann Mosey and I'm Frank Butler. We're just passing through."

"Well, Saturday afternoon some of the guys were going to get together and break in some wild broncs, and after that, the town is going to get together down at the town square and have a social evening. Some of the townspeople play guitar and fiddle and we like to do some square dancing on Saturday nights. I figure, if you're still in town, we'd like to see some of your shooting tricks," the banker said.

"Well, that would give me a day to get the horses reshoed. You got a good blacksmith in town?" Frank said.

"One of the best!" Willie said. "It's just a few more blocks, down at the end of Main Street."

"You don't mind if we do a little bit of bettin' on shots, do ya, sheriff?" Phoebe looked at the sheriff with a slight grin.

"Betting's okay. It's hard liquor we can't have, now that Carrie's moved to town," the sheriff said, looking at Willie.

Willie half grinned and half laughed as he said, "Not me, sheriff! I ain't had a drink in months! Don't you go sicking that lady on me!"

"Well, it looks like you've got yourself a deal. We'll give a little sharpshooting show on Saturday night," Phoebe said as she climbed back into the buckboard. Frank climbed into the buckboard, and gave a nod to the sheriff, Willie, and the banker as they rode on down to the hotel.

That evening Frank took his horses, a pair of paints, on down to the livery stable with orders to have them shoed the next day. Frank and Phoebe checked into the hotel. Later that evening, they had supper in the restaurant of the hotel. Willie came in, and sat at their table. He introduced them to several townspeople as they came and went. The word spread quickly of the sharpshooting show that was going to take place in the town square Saturday night.

The next morning some townspeople heard gunshots coming from the east. Nort Williams and some of the other young men in town rode their horses down the trail called Washington Street towards the Elm Creek. They saw Phoebe and Frank, practicing their trick shots. A small crowd formed, sitting under the trees and watching Phoebe shoot bottles and rocks and whatever Frank could throw in the air. She never missed a shot.

Frank took his rifle for a turn of shooting and Phoebe threw bottles and rocks into the air. Frank was just as good a shot, and soon the ground was littered with glass from all the shattered bottles.

Willie Johnson joined the crowd and was impressed with the shooting. He thought to himself, "Phoebe is breaking up more liquor bottles than that darned Carrie!" He enjoyed every minute of it and couldn't wait until the Saturday night show.

All over town there was lots of talk about the sharpshooters. Nort Williams and his son were telling everybody about what they saw on Friday at Elm Creek. Willie was bragging about Phoebe's abilities with the .22 rifle. Even the sheriff and banker were talking it up a little bit.

Finally the eagerly anticipated Saturday afternoon got to Medicine Lodge. The cowboys had captured some wild horses and kept them corraled west of town at the sale barn. They auctioned some of them off Saturday morning, and then the bravest cowboys were going to ride them bareback and break them. It was what the mexican cowboys called a "rodeo". The man from the Western Telegraph office had a nice shiny new pocket watch, and he enjoyed timing the rides to see who could stay on the bronc longest without getting bucked off. One of the cowboys got thrown off and another cowboy started clowning around to draw the wild horse's attention away so he wouldn't trample the cowboy on the ground. The banker was really having fun watching the cowboys, and he offered to pay a silver dollar to the cowboy who stayed on a wild horse the longest.

After all the fun and excitement at the corrals at the sale barn, the crowd walked up the hill called Kansas Avenue to the courthouse. Several of the women had cooked up pies and cakes and pots of beans and other good food. They were serving it out to people there in the town square. Some men had been working on a fire, building up red hot coals all afternoon, and they roasted a pig over the red hot coals. The sweet smell of the pies and cakes was bringing out bees, buzzing around the table. Over in the bandstand, half a dozen men were playing guitars and fiddles, while some of the townspeople squaredanced. The sun was moving west in the sky, turning the clouds bright reds and pinks and even purples. Children were running everywhere, playing hide and seek. Some other men had got together a couple of teams to play that new game from the east coast called "baseball". But it was hard to run around the bases in cowboy boots.

Phoebe and Frank showed up soon. They weren't dancers, and they didn't care for the game of baseball, but they did enjoy the good food. Several townspeople complimented them on what they had seen of the sharpshooting. Some people complimented them just on the gossip that they heard about the sharpshooting.

When most of the food was gone, the hour finally arrived. The sheriff stood up on a bale of hay and asked for everybody's attention. Some people didn't listen, so he shot his gun into the air, and that got their attention. "People of Medicine Lodge, I'd like to introduce Phoebe Mosey and Frank Butler, our guests in town. They're going to put on a demonstration of sharpshooting tricks. They're going to be shooting downhill, down Main Street to the south, so everybody stay back so you don't get hit by a stray bullet. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Phoebe Mosey and Frank Butler!"

Frank had about 20 bottles standing on a table, and he picked them up and threw them into the air one after another, and Phoebe shattered each one. The crowd whistled and applauded. Then he picked up some plates and threw about 30 up into the air, one after another, and Phoebe shattered each one. The crowd whistled and applauded louder.

The banker stood up and announced, "I have ten silver dollars with me tonight! I'm going to throw them into the air, and for each one that Phoebe hits with a bullet, I will replace it with a new silver dollar, for her to keep!" The crowd applauded. The banker gave the handful of silver dollars to Frank, and as Frank threw them into the air, one by one, Phoebe hit every one. As the crowd applauded and whistled, the banker handed Phoebe ten new silver dollars.

Frank stood up on the table and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, do any of you happen to be carrying a cigar tonight? If so, may I use it in this next demonstration?" The man from the Western Telegraph office handed him a cigar. Frank lit the cigar, stuck it in his mouth, and stood straight and tall facing east. Phoebe stood about 100 ft away. She aimed, steadied her rifle and fired. The crowd went wild with applause as pieces of cigar flew around in front of Frank.

"Hey, everybody, up here!" the crowd looked up on top of the bank, where Willie stood on the roof. "I've got a 10 lb bag of flour. I'm going to throw it off the roof and let's see what Phoebe can do to it!"

"I'll bet a dollar she can empty her rifle out in that bag of flour!" Nort Williams yelled to Willie.

"You got a bet, mister!" Willie answered. He threw the bag of flour out over the street, and Phoebe unloaded on it. Before it hit the ground, clouds of flour were flying everywhere. The crowd applauded wildly.

These kinds of shots went on for half an hour. The crowd made all kinds of bets, and Phoebe never missed a shot. Then a man stepped up on the table and said, "I've got a brand new deck of cards. Let's see what Phoebe can do with this!" People in the crowd exchanged bets while the man handed the deck to Frank. Frank stood on the table, took the deck of cards out of the box, and threw the whole deck in the air in a shuffle-like toss. Phoebe let loose with her .22 rifle and after all the cards reached the ground, some kids started picking them up. They handed all the cards to Frank. Frank sorted through them and counted, and announced, "Twenty two cards with bullet holes out of a deck of 52!" The people in the crowd started yelling and cheering and handing coins back and forth for their bets.

Phoebe looked over to Frank and said, "I'm losing my touch, Frank. I should have got all of 'em. Maybe we better quit shootin' now."

"Oh, come on now, the evening's still young!" Willie said to Phoebe. "Here, I've got a challenge for you. I'm going to hold up this card and you shoot through it. I trust you. You're the best shot I've ever seen!"

"Well, if it's okay with you, Frank." Phoebe said. Frank nodded. He knew that just shooting at a card in a hand wasn't as difficult as 52 cards flying through the air.

Willie went out in front of Frank and sat down in the dirt. He took his boot and sock off of his right foot, then laid down on his back in the dirt. He stuck the card between his big toe and next toe, and held his leg up straight and high. The crowd went silent as Phoebe took aim and steadied her .22 rifle. After a few seconds, she pulled the trigger. But just as she pulled the trigger, a bee flew in front of her nose. The bullet missed the card, and grazed Willie's foot. The ladies in the crowd screamed as Willie grabbed his foot.

With a look of disgust, the town doctor walked over to Willie and took a look at the wound. "The bullet cut a few of the tendons on the top of your foot, Willie. You're going to walk with a limp now, maybe for the rest of your life," the doctor said. "Somebody go get a bottle of whiskey, and tell that Carrie that it's just to kill the germs. We ain't drinkin' it."

"I'm sorry, Willie," Phoebe said as she bent over Willie to look at his foot. "That darned bee flew up my nose and made me miss. I ain't never shot nobody before."

"It's okay, Phoebe. It was my idea. I still trust you as a sharpshooter. I ain't never seen nobody shoot as good as you." Willie got up on his feet but rested on the doctor's shoulder. They made their way over to a chair and sat Willie down. A young boy ran up with a bottle of whiskey and the doctor poured it on Willie's foot. Willie winced.

The sheriff stood up on the table and said,"Sorry folks, the show is over. I'm sorry it had to end on an unhappy note." Phoebe picked up her rifles and the boxes of bullets and walked off to the hotel. She never came out of her hotel room for the rest of the night. Frank sat down at the table and paid the doctor some money for Willie's expenses. Some of the townspeople picked up their things and walked on home. The men in the bandstand started playing their music, and a few people started squaredancing again. The two teams of men started playing baseball again.

Early the next morning, Frank got the horses hitched to the buckboard, and Frank and Phoebe quietly rode out of town. Later that afternoon, the man from the Western Telegraph company walked over to the sheriff's office. "Sheriff, are Frank and Phoebe still here? I got a telegram for them."

"No, they checked out of the hotel early and left town. I don't blame them after that accident with Willie."

"Well, here's the telegram," the man said as he gave it to the sheriff.

The sheriff started reading it and was surprised. "To Frank Butler from William F. Cody: Frank, you're hired. stop I've heard you're the best sharpshooting act in the country. stop The show will be called Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. stop We're leaving Omaha in May and traveling to several major cities. stop And from now on we're going to call Phoebe by her stage name, Little Annie Oakley. stop Come to Omaha as soon as possible. stop Yours truly, Buffalo Bill."

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