The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1927-06-03
BY Peter Edison
lrg,l n. 1ITs4o..

YEA OefClC6 WTttt
RAPID CITY, S. D., June 3.-Cus-
ter's last stand needs no press agent.
ing, but the fact that one of Custer S
best scouts and messengers was a
woman who dressed herself in mems
clothes is not so well known.
That woman was Calamity Jane
Burke (nee Cannary), Missouri
preachers daughter who made as
much history as any other individual
in the Black Hills of South Dakota,
where Calvin Coolidge will spend
his vacation this summer.
In the 1905, when the gold field
north of the present summer White
House was still in its swaddling
clothes, Jane Burke was an angel in
disguise, and the disguise was per-
feet.
1t was James boast that she never
went to bed sober and that she never
went to bed with a penny in her
pants pocket. Pants pocket is cor
rect.
Calamity Jane wore masculin.e
garb.
Queen of the Hills
She got her name from the fact
that she brought calamity on her
adversaries. She lived as a man
among the toughest of the tough
est days in the dime novel capital
Of the world and she held her own.
She was coarser than cord wood or
finer than silk, depending on whether
you look on her virtues or vices.
If a fever-racked prospector in his
delirium called for sweet pickles
against the Doctors orders, Jane
saw that he got the pickles.
At the point of a gun she held up
store at Confederate Gulch during
the smallpox scourge which hit the
hills in 1878. She made the store
keeper wrap her up an order Of
fancy groceries,.
Backing out OF the store she made
for the mountain isolation camp.
Her patient got well and was brought
back to town amid much shooting,
Expert Pistol Shot
A queer mixture of Lady Bounti-
full Florence Nightingale, Evange-
line Booth, Buffalo Bill, Deadwood
Dick and plain old soak all rolled
into one-a woman who did every;
thing that men did years before suf-
frage and the modern woman were
dreamed of! She even chewed to-
bacco. When she went on a tan
trum, the population took to the
woods.
1t was her hardness with rifle and
siX-shooter that won her a place as
teamster and later as a scout for
! Custer. At the age Of IS this pre-
| date fapper could throw an oyster
can in the air and put two bullet
holes in it from her revolver before
the can touched the ground.
She rode the Pony Express route
from Deadwood to Custer, al
through the heart of the bandit.
infested Black Hills.
Riding toward Crook City one day
she found the Overland Mail, driver
less, plunginy across the plain pur
D. Sutu ny IlltlldIlS.
everything but the mail and the si1
passengers and raced them to safety
Equally Adept
With other short-range weapons
she was equally adept. She would
bet Black Hills gold dust that she
could fleck fly off an ox's ear with
a siXteen-foot whip lash three times
| out Of five. 1t is unprovcn history
that she cornered and captured WilC
Bill Hickock's slayer with q
butchers cleaver.
She was married three times fol-
sure, and maybe nine times more fol-
luck. Folk lore around the hills says
she had twelve husbands. she has
one daughter still living, known as
a loving mother in her owr
beautiful home"
When Calamity Jane died in 1908
after a spree which had LASTED
several days, she was brought back
to Deadwood and, at her own re
quest, buried beside Wild Bill
Hickock, her idol. She had the
largest funeral ever held in Dead
wood.
y TOMORROW: Wild Bill Hickock.