Frank "Pistol Pete" Eaton

The Wild West Extravaganza

Wild West Josh

Education, History

4.8 • 833 Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton was more than a mascot. He was a real man who claimed to have lived one of the most violent and extraordinary lives of the Old West. Born in 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut, Eaton moved with his family to Kansas, where he witnessed his father’s murder at the hands of six vigilantes. From that moment on, young Frank dedicated his life to revenge. By the time he was fifteen, he was a crack shot with a revolver and began hunting down his father’s killers one by one. He later served as a deputy under Judge Isaac Parker before settling in Oklahoma as a blacksmith. In time, his larger-than-life reputation turned him into a local hero and eventually the inspiration for Oklahoma State University’s official mascot, Pistol Pete. Today, we'll explore the facts, the myths, and the legacy of Frank Eaton. Was he really a teenage avenger turned US Marshal, or just an old cowboy spinning stories that grew taller with time? Buy Me A Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/wildwest Check out the website! https://www.wildwestextra.com/ Email me! https://www.wildwestextra.com/contact/ Free Newsletter! https://wildwestjosh.substack.com/ Join Patreon for ad-free bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/wildwestextra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	He watched his father get murdered when he was just eight years old.
0:03.1	By the age of 15, he was tracking down the killers.
0:05.5	By 20, most of them were dead.
0:07.3	And today, he's a college mascot.
0:10.1	You see, in the 1870s, Pistol Pete had not yet become a cartoon cowboy on the sidelines.
0:15.2	Back in those days, he was a real-life teenager with a real gun and a very real grudge.
0:20.5	The pine-sized pistolero not only avenged his father's death, but he also became the youngest
0:25.3	deputy U.S. Marshal in all of history.
0:28.7	Maybe.
0:29.8	Join me today as we attempt to separate fact from fiction, college football style.
0:34.6	Who was Frank Eaton?
0:36.3	How did a teenage gunfighter become the face of Oklahoma State
0:39.1	University? Where do you get the nickname Pistol Pete anyway? Now true are the stories of him
0:44.2	tracking down his father's killers. Stick around and find out. My name's Josh and this is the
0:49.7	Wild West extravaganza.
1:05.6	Frank Borman Eaton was born on October 26, 1860 in Hartford, Connecticut.
1:10.0	His family would head west when he was still a boy and settled in Osage County, Kansas,
1:11.2	some 30 or so miles south of Topeka. Now, at that particular time, Kansas was not exactly the safest place
1:16.3	in the world to be putting down roots. The war between the states may have been over by the time
1:20.6	they arrived, but the area was still most definitely infested with former guerrillas, rough sorts
1:25.8	who had developed a taste for violence during the previous
1:28.1	hostilities, only to then go ahead and rebrand themselves as so-called regulators.
	...

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