A visit to The Garst Museum in Greenville was on this year’s schedule. The National Annie Oakley Center, part of the museum, features exhibits dedicated to the famous Ohioan’s personal and professional life.
“We knew a little about Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill and we thought it would be interesting for the children to learn about the fascinating things she did and the fact that she would shoot game at a very young age to feed her family.”
But before they got to the museum, they had no idea it had so many other fascinating displays.
“Our grandchildren are ages 2 to 14 and it held their interest for at least two hours,” Susan said. “My husband and I will definitely go back and see even more of it. Everyone enjoyed standing next to the five-foot-tall Annie Oakley to see how they measured up!”
The family especially liked seeing the old-fashioned streets — the schoolhouse, the barber shop, the apothecary.
Eileen Litchfield, Garst Board member and President of the Annie Oakley Center Foundation, said visitors are often surprised at its size: 35,000 sq. ft. The original old brick home housed the Garst family including 13 children. Later it became an inn.
“People often say they come for Annie Oakley or the Crossroads of Destiny area and are amazed to find so much more about the American experience,” Litchfield said. “People also comment on how clean the museum is, and that is all due to our wonderful more-than-a-maintenance person, Dan Kagey, who has worked at the museum for 66 years.”
Celebrating Annie
It’s that time of year when folks in Greenville are busily preparing to honor their most illustrious native.
“She was so skilled in shooting she could shoot accurately while riding a bike or on horseback,” said Litchfield. “At 30 paces, she could slice a playing card held edgewise, shoot holes through coins at a similar distance, and scramble eggs in midair. She shot ashes out of cigarettes, snuffed candles, and shot corks out of bottles.”
The museum not only offers a comprehensive view of Annie’s fascinating life journey but also hosts an annual Annie Oakley summer celebration, “The Gathering at Garst.” Held on museum grounds, this year’s gathering is slated for July 26-27. It’s now being run by the Darke County Park District.
The free event —there’s a parking fee--features art, entertainment and food trucks as well as re-enactments of pioneer days. There’s a rubber band shooting contest and a big cannon shot off hourly. Interpreter Cait Clark Pence brings Annie Oakley to life for visitors.
For a fee, you can even take a “Hold Annie’s Gun” photo with one of the sharpshooter’s authentic guns in your hand!
Separate from the museum’s events are Annie Oakley Days in Greenville which this year are scheduled for July 24-27. There’s an Annie Oakley Festival at the Fairgrounds and a bus tour that goes to many of the Annie sites. On Thursday, there’s a “Miss Annie Oakley Shooting Contest”; on Friday a “Memorial Shoot” in memory of Annie and her famous husband, Frank Butler. Both of the shooting events are sponsored by the Museum Foundation.
More about Annie
The in-house Annie expert is Brenda Arnett who serves as Office and Museum Store manager as well as the Annie Oakley research coordinator at Garst. Along with research, she’s responsible for updating accessioning details on Annie artifacts and accessioning items that have not yet been officially been added to the database.
Arnett says while the Broadway musical, ‘Annie Get Your Gun,’ is definitely a crowd pleaser, it’s not factual.
“Annie’s, Buffalo Bill’s, and Sitting Bull’s names and the fact that she met and defeated her husband at a shooting match are about the only true facts in the musical. I find Annie and Frank fascinating because she was a trailblazer for women and her husband was smart enough to know that the public wanted to see Annie perform so he gladly became her manager and promoter.”
Here are some of the other facts:
- Annie’s name at birth was Phoebe Ann Mosey; she was born in 1860 in Darke County, and learned to shoot when she was eight years old. In 1875, she was invited to take part in a shooting contest in Cincinnati against Frank Butler, a professional vaudeville stage shooter. When she won, Butler convinced her to travel with him across the country, demonstrating her skills. She and Frank Butler were married in 1882 and in 1885 joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.
- Annie became internationally known after the troupe traveled to England in 1887 for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. The Butlers were quiet philanthropists, often paying for educating youth and donating to tuberculosis hospitals with the funds coming from the proceeds of Annie’s medals that had been melted down
- The King of Senegal offered to buy Annie for $100,000 to kill the animal predators and protect his citizens. It was politely declined.
- Annie promoted the fact that women should receive equal pay for equal work and that a woman should learn to shoot, both to provide food for her family and also for self-protection. She taught over 15,000 women and girls how to shoot in her later years.
- Due to their declining health, Annie and Frank returned to Ohio and were residing in Dayton in 1925. Annie set a record at the Vandalia Trap shoot, hitting 97 out of 100 targets. She was inducted into Dayton’s Walk of Fame in 2011.
- She died in Greenville in 1926 and is buried with her husband in a nearby cemetery where visitors often leave coins because she was known for shooting dimes out of a person’s hands.
Arnett, who calls Annie the first American woman superstar, said people throughout the nation continue to have an interest in Annie and visitors to the museum come from throughout the country and around the world.
Other displays at Garst
Eileen Litchfield recommends these exhibits as well:
- The Crossroads of Destiny area. There’s lots of arrowheads across from the mastodon jaw, but the recreated Fort Greenville really catches kids’ eyes. The fort covered six city blocks. You can also learn how Lewis and Clark met in Greenville as soldiers at the fort before their big exploration began and see the artist’s working copy of the painting of the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
- The Keepers of Freedom exhibit displays military uniforms from each conflict starting with the War of 1812 and items from those conflicts brought back by soldiers from the county. There’s a wooden leg from the Civil war and souvenirs from WWII from the Pacific and Germany. There’s an exhibit about Longtown, the first tri-racial settlement in the area with black, white and Native Americans living together.
- Lowell Thomas
- Born in Greenville, Lowell Thomas was a WWII war correspondent in an era when people huddled around radios for news of the war. He hobnobbed with various presidents over the year and travelled the world. He befriended Lawrence of Arabia and the museum displays the flag that was flown over the surrender of Jerusalem in 1917 when the Ottoman Turks surrendered to the British. The museum director, Dr. Clay Johnson, feels that it is the most important artifact in the whole museum!
- The Americana Wing has rooms set up from the early 1900s. The chamber pot and trundle bed are favorites. The Villages show what life was like years ago on a Main Street. You’ll also see antique farm equipment, original sewing machines, a ‘surrey with the fringe on top’ and an Iddings race car, built in Greenville and retired in 1973, which was driven by famous race car drivers including the Unsers.
HOW TO GO
What: The Garst Museum and the National Annie Oakley Center
Where: 205 N. Broadway, Greenville
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays–Saturdays from February to December. Special event “Hold Annie’s Gun” event is noon to 6 p.m. July 26, and noon to 3 p.m. July 27.
Admission: $12 adults, $11 seniors 60 and older, $9 youth (6-17). Free for 5 and younger and always free for museum members.
More info: (937) 548-5250 or garstmuseum.org for the Museum. Or, annieoakleycenterfoundation.com.
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