History Lessons

With Grandma in town, we made a family trek last Saturday to Greenville, Ohio to see the Annie Oakley historical sites.

Annie was the shooten-est tooten-est gal that ever shot a handgun or rifle. Born and raised in Greenville, she became famous throughout the US in the late 1800s and early 1900s for her extraordinary shooting ability (while still young she made money by shooting birds for local markets, and the birds she killed were in high demand because she would invariably kill them with head-shots and thus not damage the meat). She spent many years touring with the Wild West Show as one of its main attractions, including touring with the show in Europe, where she met Queen Victoria and other royalty.

Part of the reason we chose this trip is because Erin just completed a book report of one of her biographies. (She had to draw a picture for the cover of her report, and since nowadays are nowadays, she couldn't draw even a picture of a gun (that would get her suspended or kicked out of school), so she just drew her face--or a reasonable facsimile thereof....)

Annie is there to greet you as you drive through Greenville:




She is standing there beside you at the Annie Oakley exhibit at the Garst Museum:



And her final resting place is about 8 miles north of town (the map and written directions from the museum don't help much!):



On the way home we drove through a town (a wide spot in the road) called Ludlow Falls and we were even able to find the Niagara-esque falls!



Thus endeth the history lesson.