Journal Notes

Enter now to win a copy of the Will Rogers Medallion Award Winning Book

The Trials of Annie Oakley

On August 8, 1903, a drifter named Charles Curtis made his way to the Harrison Street Police Station in Chicago and filed a complaint to Justice of the Peace John R. Caverly about a woman named Little Cody. Curtis had befriended the woman he supposed was down on her luck and provided her a place to stay for a few days. During her visit with Charles, she stole a pair of pants and made herself a nuisance. The complaint charged her with having “made an improper noise, riot, and disturbance.” A warrant for the woman’s arrest was issued, and “Little Cody” was arrested and escorted to jail. The fee she was to pay was $100. She didn’t have the money to give the court and was to be held until she produced the funds.

The prisoner did not give the clerks or the jail matrons a difficult time. She was chatty during the intake process, but polite. Her appearance was slovenly, clothes were torn and unwashed, and she was obviously under the influence of drugs. She told officials at the facility about her work as a crack rifle shot and of the days, she spent with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. The curious matron couldn’t help but pursue the matter further. “You are the noted Annie Oakley, I guess.” The woman proudly announced that she was indeed the famed sure shot.

Charles Curtis came to visit the woman once she was behind bars and seeing her distressed state decided not to press charges.

When arraigned before the justice on Monday morning August 10, the police officer who had booked her into jail stated she was the famous Annie Oakley who had exhibited with Buffalo Bill Cody. The officer informed the court that if she were allowed to go free, she would only spread disease and implored the judge to send her to a women’s asylum where she could be taken care of. The judge agreed and instructed the court to send the woman to Bridewell Prison Farm. Her fine was reduced to $25.

After her day in court, she was taken downstairs to the lock up again. Several people were waiting for her to arrive so they could talk with her. One of those individuals was George W. Pratt, a reporter for the Chicago American. Pratt had visited Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show many times and was acquainted with several acts associated with the program. He wanted to get the woman’s full story and spent hours with her asking questions about what brought her to such a lowly state. Her answers contained specific information about who performed in Cody’s shows with her, when, and the exhilarating experience she had at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Pratt and other reporters were convinced this woman was the real Annie Oakley. Pratt wrote a story about his first-hand experience with the accused. As many reporters did at that time, he elaborated and sensationalized the account.

To learn more about the famous sure shot read

The Trials of Annie Oakley

Enter now to win a copy of The Trials of Annie Oakley

Say the name Annie Oakley and the image of a young woman who could shoot targets out of the sky without a miss and rode across the frontier with Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody comes to mind. Annie Oakley was a champion rifle shot and did perform alongside well-known riders, ropers, and Indian chiefs in Colonel Cody’s vaudevillian tour, but there was more to Annie Oakley’s fame than her skill with a gun. The diminutive weapons wonder was a strong proponent of the right to bear arms, a noted philanthropist, and warrior against libel who fought the most powerful man in publishing and won.

The native Ohioan astonished the world with her almost unbelievable feats of rifle marksmanship. She could pepper a playing card sailing through the air, puncture dimes tossed into the sky, and break flying balls with her rifle held high above her head. She once shot steadily for nine hours, using three sixteen-gauge hammer shotguns which she loaded herself, breaking 4,772 out of 5,000 balls.

Annie Oakley fell in love with and married the first man she defeated in a rifle match. Frank E. Butler was one of the most noted marksmen in the West and he and Annie were married for more than fifty years. The couple never had any children of their own. The reasons they were childless are varied and speculative at best. What is not without question is how Annie helped fund the care and education of orphaned children from coast to coast.

Annie Oakley was a combination of dainty, feminine charm, and lead bullets, adorned in fringed handmade fineries and topped with a halo of powder blue smoke. She had a reputation for being humble, true, and law abiding and was careful with her character at all times. When powerful, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst challenged her honor and questioned her respectability in his publication in 1903, Annie filed a lawsuit against him that’s still discussed at universities today.

Annie’s experience with Hearst wasn’t the only trial she encountered in her celebrated life. A couple of motor vehicle accidents left her in constant pain, subjected her to numerous back surgeries, and resulted in Annie having to wear a leg brace. There were other struggles as well, some just as stifling as a leg brace.

Although Annie’s position on what women should be allowed to do was progressive for the time (she believed in equal pay and in women’s right to carry a gun) she was not for women’s suffrage. Her chief concern was that not enough “good” women would vote. Annie wasn’t political in that sense. She tried for years to convince the government to allow her to recruit a team of women sharpshooters to fight for the country but was never successful. Public servants dismissed the firearms expert’s idea outright, but Annie never fully abandoned the notion.

The incomparable Annie Oakley suffered through numerous heartaches in her lifetime, the death of her father in 1866, her mother in 1908, her beloved dog, Dave in 1923, and her dear friend, Buffalo Bill Cody in 1917. She was also forced to deal with reports of her own death in 1890. “I am, indeed, very grateful for your many kind words in my obituary,” she wrote the editor at a Cincinnati, Ohio, magazine. “How such a report got started I do not know. I am thankful to say I’m in the best of health.”

Annie and Frank battled imposters trying to use Oakley’s famous name to gain work at theaters and rodeos and endeavored to tolerate brash rivals like Lillian Smith, who was hired by Buffalo Bill Cody to appear in the Wild West show. Lillian was younger than Annie and she was braggadocios and flirtatious with the male cast members of the Wild West show. Her unladylike behavior contributed to Annie’s eventual departure from the program, a way of life that had been a constant for her for more than sixteen years.

Only those close to Annie were aware of the difficulties she experienced. She managed every trial that came her way with such dignity and grace it was easy for the public to believe she never had a worry, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

The Trials of Annie Oakley describe the hardships the peerless lady wing shot overcame, from her early life using her marksmanship as a means of providing food for her widowed mother, brother, and sisters, to her final days dealing with all the symptoms associated with pernicious anemia. It is the story of a young woman who survived scandal and misfortune to become a true American hero.

Enter now to win a copy of

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

Isabella considered the criticism Evans had about Jim. She believed some of the animosity was born out of the fact that he was a popular character and articles about him frequently appeared in Colorado newspapers. He was a man to be envied, and Evans and others hoping to drive Jim out of the park were consumed with jealousy. “Ruffian as he looks,” Isabella elaborated on Jim in her memoirs, “the first word he speaks – to a lady, at least – places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of genius.”

Isabella always keenly felt Jim’s absences. On one hand she admired him greatly, and on the other she grieved the life she felt he wasted because of his unruly past.  “What good could the future have in store for one who has for so long chosen evil,” she asked herself in her memoirs. After each encounter, she was consumed with the notion if Jim surrendered all to the Lord his path would be set straight again. Only then could there be hope for “a most painful spectacle.”  Only then could there be hope the two might find happiness together. Thoughts of Jim and his restoration crowded her mind to the exclusion of all else. She couldn’t write. Distractions were necessary. Fortunately, the day after her exhilarating ride with Jim and the Deweys, Griff Evans provided one. Once again, he needed another hand to help with a cattle drive. Isabella gladly agreed.

The bronco Isabella was given to ride was quick and resilient. The pair traveled over rocks and inclines, driving the herds out of canyons and tree lines. While riding fast and pushing the cows forward, Isabella reflected on her days riding in Hawaii. That challenge had provided her with the experience needed to round up Texas steers.

To learn more about Isabella Bird’s time with Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man

Enter now to win a copy of

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves. 

Isabella Bird loved an outlaw and only shared her feelings with her sister. 

Mountain Man Jim loved a lady and told everyone who would listen. 

Read the true story of the unlikely friendship of Isabella Bird and Mountain Man Jim Nugent in 

The Lady and the Mountain Man.  

Synopsis: Isabella Bird was a proper Victorian lady, a minster’s daughter, a writer who traveled the globe. She was expected to marry a man of means and position instead she was drawn to a gruff mountain man, a desperado named Jim Nugent.

Critique: The Lady and the Mountain Man: Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship is the extensively researched, true-life account of how two people with tremendously different backgrounds and temperaments shared a mutual love of a wild land. Isabella Bird was a well-to-do woman, an author, and a traveler with dreams, expected to marry a man of means and position. Yet she became infatuated with the gruff desperado Jim Nugent (“Rocky Mountain Jim”) in Estes Park, Colorado in 1873. Their unlikely friendship bloomed over the course of a climb to the top of Longs Peak. Extensive notes, a bibliography, and an index round out his in-depth examination of a journey and a relationship that would transform both Isabella and Jim of them for the rest of their lives – although Isabella was ultimately destined to have a much longer life than Jim. A thoroughly captivating slice of history, The Lady and the Mountain Man is highly recommended especially for public library Western History collections.

Enter now to win a copy of

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

“Thank you, Chris Enss, for this marvelous introduction to Isabella Bird, an English lady who refused to let unremitting pain keep her from exploring the American West. Isabella was a prolific writer whose reports on all she saw and experienced brought admirers from across the world to bask in the wonders of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Americans today will gain greater appreciation for our country, seeing it through this woman’s eyes even as she fell in love with a crusty, drink-riddled mountain man. Enss, a prolific and engaging writer in her own right, beautifully brings this woman to life.”

Two-time Western Writers of America Spur Award Winner, Carol Crigger

Author Chris Enss details Isabella Bird and her journey to Estes Park and her “unlikely friendship” with Rocky Mountain Jim in this American West classic, The Lady and The Mountain Man.

The lure of the fabled Rocky Mountains was an irresistible force for Isabella Bird.

Like many British citizens in the late 19th century, Bird had read stories and heard tales about the majestic American range across the ocean. The air of Colorado’s high altitude offered healing properties for travelers, and its stunning peaks were magnificent sights apt for anyone’s bucket list.

For Bird, who set out from Britain on a steam ship in 1872, the prospect of a visit to the Rocky Mountains was hardly promising or simple. Bird, who had suffered serious health issues since childhood, embarked on the transcontinental journey with a wire cage around her neck, a Victorian medical solution to her weak spine and injured neck.

What’s more, Bird undertook the journey alone, a decision that defied the societal norms and expectations of the time.

“This is in the 1870s, and Bird is a single, Victorian woman in poor health traveling to America,” said author Chris Enss, whose latest book, “The Lady and the Mountain Man,” details Bird’s journey to Colorado in 1873.

Enss’s latest book detailing the history of the American West focuses on Bird’s journey to Estes Park and her “unlikely friendship” with “Rocky Mountain Jim” Nugent, a one-eyed outlaw who guides her to the top of Longs Peak. The book explores Bird’s legacy as an explorer, the colorful characters who resided in Estes Park in the late 19th century and the sometimes-fatal regional struggles for land, power, and influence.

At its heart, however, the book follows a theme that runs throughout Enss’s impressive oeuvre of dozens of books about the American West. The author has long focused on exploring the lives of the women who braved a new frontier in a time of unabashed sexism and structural misogyny. Isabella Bird, who’d gain a reputation as an unparalleled explorer, author, photographer, author, and anthropologist, is a fitting focus for Enss, who’s long worked to spotlight the stories of the women of the West who’ve been overlooked by history.

Throughout her life, Bird’s travels spanned the globe, from Japan to Australia to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) to India, Turkey, and Singapore. Her writings set the standard for international travel and cultural understanding in the 19th century; she was the first woman to be inducted into the Royal National Geographic Society.

For all of her impressive odysseys, Bird’s travels to Colorado served as a watershed in several ways, Enss said.

“The consistency throughout the book is the story of this strong woman who decided that she was going to do something regardless of what the rest of the world said she could or couldn’t do,” Enss said. “Not only were there stereotypes about what women could do in the American west, but she was also an aristocratic woman from Britain,” she added, noting that Bird defied expectations from multiple cultures.

Enss, who drew material from letters, newspaper articles and other primary sources, added that while Bird serves as the central figure of the book, “The Lady and the Mountain Man” offers readers multiple narrative tracks and simultaneous threads. As the book’s title indicates, the story explores the unique relationship between Bird and Jim Nugent, a grizzled outlaw out of a Western storybook who also boasted a penchant for poetry, literature, and history. As Bird herself noted, he was a “man any woman might love but no sane woman would marry.”

Bird, who called Nugent her “dear desperado,” forged a relationship with Nugent as they ascended Longs Peak together, a harrowing journey that would’ve been challenging for even the most experienced mountaineer.

“It was incredibly difficult. They did not have any of the fineries that people have now. She speaks a lot about the difficulty in crossing the lava bed, with all the jagged rocks. Her footing wasn’t so good,” Enss said, citing reports initially spelled out in Bird’s letters to her sister at home, accounts that ultimately figured into her book “A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains.” “It was cold. There were lots of wild animals that seemed to be stalking them.”

As the pair braved those risks in the day, and bonded around the campfire at night, their relationship took on a different dimension, Enss notes. The journey offered an opportunity for both to reveal their character – they swapped verses of poetry, discussions about the Bible and meditations about Shakespeare. According to one of her letters, Nugent “told stories of his early youth, and of a great sorrow which had led him to embark on a lawless and desperate life.”

That combination of peril and intimacy left an indelible mark, Enss said.

“It results with the pair falling in love,” she said. “He drank in excess, he was crude. But at one point he had studied to be a priest. He was a poet, and he could quote Shakespeare. Going up to Longs Peak in the evenings, he regaled her with his verses.”

This unlikely bond builds against a backdrop of frontier conflicts and violence. Lord Dunraven, an aristocrat who owned land in the Estes Park area, was intent on claiming large swaths of the area for hunting preserves and other purposes, wanted to get rid of Nugent and drive him from his land. That conflict would ultimately claim Nugent’s life, after Bird left Colorado for further international journeys.

“The book really is in three parts. You have the part with Isabella and Jim; there’s the Lord Dunraven portion of the story and his combative relationship; but you also have Isabella Bird, who as she’s getting healthier, tours the Rocky Mountains by herself,” Enss said, adding that journey ultimately served as a transformative experience – after her time in Colorado, Bird no longer wore the wire cage to support her neck and back. “That was unheard of in 1873 for a woman to do.”

A through-line that undergirds all elements of the book is the setting. Enss has long explored different sites and locales in the American West, but this tome offered the author the opportunity to spotlight Colorado and the Estes Park region as its own character.

“Colorado is a character in and of itself. That’s really important in this book,” she said, adding that the setting and the main character combined to make this piece unforgettable in her 50-plus book bibliography. “Of all the people who I’ve written about (more than 50 books), I’ll miss her the most. She was just an inspired human being.”

Enter now to win a copy of The Lady and the Mountain Man

Enter now to win a copy of

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

The Greeley stage arrived by mid-morning and came to a stop at the stables not far from the inn.  A male passenger dressed in tailored clothing from his head to his boots stepped out of the vehicle.  He was wearing light colored, woolen breeches, a white shirt, silk bandana, a heavy, double-breasted, lined flannel coat, and a black woolen-lined driving cap with ear flaps.  Isabella recognized him as the Englishman William Haigh.  She’d had occasion to meet him once in Estes Park while he was visiting with Griff Evans.  Carrying a few of her belongings, she walked to the stage.  Jim followed alongside her, clutching her bags in each hand.

Ever the polite dandy, Haigh bowed briefly at the waist when he saw Isabella.  The two exchanged cordialities, and then she introduced him to Mountain Jim.  After expressing how honored he was to make his acquaintance, he told Jim his reputation had proceeded him and how much he would enjoy going on a hunting trip with him.  Jim was courteous and thanked the Englishman for his thoughtfulness.  Haigh extended his hand to shake Jim’s.  It was a scene Isabella recalled vividly.  “…[H]e put out a small hand cased in a perfectly fitting lemon colored kid glove,” she wrote in her memoirs.  “As the mountain man stood there in his grotesque rags and odds and ends of apparel, his gentlemanliness of deportment brought into relief the innate vulgarity of a rich parvenu.”

Once the stage driver secured Isabella’s bags on the vehicle, it was time to go.  Haigh helped Isabella into the coach while regaling her with news of England, his trip to the Rockies, and the influential people he’d come to know during his time in the American West.  The driver cracked the whip, and the team of horses lit out.  Isabella looked back to wave goodbye to the desperado she had come to know and dared to love.  Jim had mounted his ride and was trudging through the mud and snow in the opposite direction.  The dazzling sunlight broke through the thick tree line and danced on the renegade mountain man’s golden yellow hair.  Slowly, his image faded into the snowy terrain.

To learn more about Isabella Bird and her time with Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man

Enter now to win a copy of

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

“A touching, well-researched story of the love shared between a prolific author and Victorian lady in the Rocky Mountains and the renegade trapper who helped her realize her dream of climbing Longs Peak.”

New York Times Bestselling Author of Give My Heart to the Hawks, Win Blevins

“Thank you, Chris Enss, for this marvelous introduction to Isabella Bird, an English lady who refused to let unremitting pain keep her from exploring the American West. Isabella was a prolific writer whose reports on all she saw and experienced brought admirers from across the world to bask in the wonders of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Americans today will gain greater appreciation for our country, seeing it through this woman’s eyes even as she fell in love with a crusty, drink-riddled mountain man. Enss, a prolific and engaging writer in her own right, beautifully brings this woman to life.”

Two-time Western Writers of America Spur Award Winner, Carol Crigger

“A delightful account of the peregrinations of Isabella Bird, footloose nineteenth-century English travel and inspirational writer. She documented journeys in Britain and the Pacific, finally ending in Colorado, where she befriended legendary Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent. Her wanderlust later took her to Asia and north Africa. If you don’t know Isabella Bird’s story, you’re in for a treat. A good read by Chris Enss, a perennial winner.”

Spur Award Finalist and Will Rogers Medallion Winner, Harlan Hague

Sandra Dallas’s Review of The Lady and the Mountain Man for the Denver Post.

“Isabella Bird is one of Colorado’s favorite historical figures. The fearless Englishwoman rode all over Colorado’s mountains in 1873, in bad weather and by herself. “The Lady and the Mountain Man” is a definitive treatment of Bird’s life.

Bird was an invalid, and doctors recommended sea voyages to improve her health. She was intrigued with the American West, and once healed, she came here by herself to explore the mountains. She settled in Estes Park where she met infamous mountain man Jim Nugent. Mauled by a grizzly, Mountain Jim was scarred and missing an eye, but Bird found him handsome. He had a reputation for violence, particularly when he was drunk, and Bird was warned against him.

The two fell in love, but a future together was not to be.

In this detailed account of the star-crossed lovers, the author — who is known for her books on Western women — plumbs both Colorado and British resources. In Enss’ hands, Bird is not a female oddity, but a woman of strength, courage and loyalty.”