2023-03 HCA Auctions
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/8/2023
Autograph Letter Signed "E.W. Lenders" 1pp. quarto, on illustrated lettersheet "Princess Wenona's Western Show Featuring Princess Wenona the World's Greatest Horseback Rifle Shot" July 14, 1911, Bliss, Oklahoma, and pertaining to costs for production. Fine condition, mounted to linen. Wenona, the "Sioux" Sharpshooter, became Annie Oakley's rival. Shortly after this business letter, on the morning of August 3, 1901, more than 100,000 people jostled to catch a glimpse of Frederick Cummins' Indian Congress parade at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York. Wenona, Cummins proclaimed, was not only the "champion rifle shot of the world," but also the daughter of a chief named Crazy Horse and a white woman, born in a "tepee on the south bank of the Big Cheyenne, near Fort Bennett, Dakota," and only 18 years old. Cummins offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who could best Wenona with a rifle at the Exhibition. Her extraordinary shooting prowess, he crowed, had been bestowed upon her by supernatural spirits of the Indian world.
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