"Pistol Pete is the athletics mascot of Oklahoma State University. The Pistol Pete mascot costume features traditional cowboy attire and a headpiece resembling Frank Eaton. Pistol Pete has been the mascot for the Oklahoma State Cowboys since 1923"
"Around 1923, when Oklahoma A&M College was searching for a new mascot to replace their tiger (which had been copied from Princeton and accounts for the orange and black school colors), a group of students saw Frank Eaton leading Stillwater's Armistice Day Parade.He was approached to see if he would be interested in being the model for the new mascot, and he agreed. A likeness was drawn and began to be used on sweatshirts, stickers, etc. and a tradition was born. That caricature was the basis for what is used today as the official Oklahoma State University mascot. For thirty-five years, the crusty old cowboy was a living symbol of OSU, representing the colorful past of the area. As such, he would attend OSU athletic events, building dedications, etc., and sign autographs, pose for photographs and reminisce about the American Old West with anyone who would listen.
However, it was not until 1958 that "Pistol Pete" was adopted as the school's mascot. The familiar caricature of "Pistol Pete" was officially sanctioned in 1984 by Oklahoma State University as a licensed symbol."
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"Eaton was born in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, and at the age of eight, he moved with his family to Twin Mound, Kansas.
When Eaton was eight years old, his father, a vigilante, was shot in cold blood by six former Confederates, who during the war had served with the Quantrill Raiders.
The six men, from the Campsey and the Ferber clans, rode with the southerners who after the war called themselves "Regulators".
In 1868, Mose Beaman, his father's friend, said to Frank, "My boy, may an old man's curse rest upon you, if you do not try to avenge your father".
That same year, Mose taught him to handle a gun."
"At the age of fifteen, before setting off to avenge his father's death, Eaton said he visited Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, a cavalry fort, to learn more about how to handle a gun. Although too young to join the army, he outshot everyone at the fort and competed with the cavalry's best marksmen, beating them every time.
Eaton claimed that after many competitions, the fort's commanding officer, Colonel John Joseph Coppinger, gave Frank a marksmanship badge and a new nickname, "Pistol Pete." Like many of his tales, this may not be completely factual.
During his teen years, Eaton wrote that he was faster on the draw than Buffalo Bill. From his first days as a lawman, he was said to "pack the fastest guns in the Indian Territory."
By the end of his career, Eaton would allegedly have eleven notches on his gun."
" At twenty-nine, he joined the land rush to Oklahoma Territory. He settled southwest of Perkins, Oklahoma where he served as sheriff and later became a blacksmith. He was married twice, had nine children, 31 grandchildren, and lived to see three great-great-grandchildren. He died on April 8, 1958 at the age of 97."
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"hotter than Pete's pistol," traces back to Eaton's shooting skills, along with his legendary pursuit of his father's killers.
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