Cow Girl Chocolates Truffles

Born a physicians daughter in...

Philadelphia in the late 1800's, May
Manning left society life at age 14 to
marry Major Gordon "Pawnee Bill" Lillie.
Major Lillie took her to Kansas where
she learned to ride and shoot from the
Pawnee Indians. In time, the Lillies created Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show. May Lillie toured with the show and was billed as "Miss May Lillie, Champion Lady Horse-back Shot of the World." Source

At this point in 1883 Buffalo Bill Cody was about to enter Gordon Lillie’s life in a way that would make them life-long friends. Cody’s first Wild West Show was set to make its debut in Omaha and Lillie was officially assigned by the Indian Commissioner to take charge of the Pawnees who had been hired to appear in it. The show was a sell-out success all across the country with its cowboys, Indians, trick riders, marksmen, wild steers, buffalo, and stagecoach pursuit. When the show hit Philadelphia, love hit Gordon Lillie in the form of a citybred, Smith College girl named May Manning. At the end of the show season, Gordon returned to the cattle ranch he now owned in Medicine Lodge Kansas, while he and May kept a steady flow of letters going between them...”

“The next season Gordon/Pawnee Bill took his Pawnee Indians back on Buffalo Bill’s Wild West tour and when the show hit Philadelphia again, he proposed to May. Against her socially prominent mother’s wishes, May agreed to be his bride...”

“May Manning and Gordon W. Lillie were married August 31, 1886 and the society Quaker girl went west to Kansas and the open plains. About a year later their six week old son died and complications prevented May from having any more children. From that day on, she threw herself into learning how to ride, rope, and shoot like a real cowgirl. Riding side saddle on a running horse, she became a sensational marksman...”

“Pawnee Bill’s Wild West show hit the road in the spring of 1888. It starred May Lillie, Trapper Tom, brother Al Lillie, Indians from five different tribes, 165 people, 165 animals, and Pawnee Bill himself...”

“In 1908 Pawnee Bill unexpectedly bought out the James Bailey interest in the Buffalo Bill Wild West. From that point on May Lillie refused to ever appear with ‘Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and Pawnee Bill’s Great Far East,” as it was now called. She felt it was a huge mistake to take such a gamble when their own show was doing so well by itself...”

“Between oil, banking, and real estate, Pawnee Bill and May were secure for the rest of their lives. Their ranch became a gathering spot for famous people from around the world. Pawnee Bill now became active in many civic and charitable organizations. He and May finally found time for a child and adopted a baby boy in 1916. However Billie was killed in an accident on the ranch when he was only nine years old.

By 1930 Lillie had pioneered the construction nearby of Old Town, and an Indian trading post in an effort to retain some of the flavor of the old west. Pawnee Bill and May Lillie celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary at a special celebration in their honor in Taos, New Mexico, in August of 1936. Two weeks later May was fatally injured in an auto accident while Pawnee Bill was driving home from Tulsa. She died September 14 of that year. Major Gordon W. Lillie/Pawnee Bill lived another active but peaceful six years on the ranch until his death on Feb. 3, 1942 at age 82.

Gordon W. Lillie alias "Pawnee Bill" and his wife May had one of the biggest buffalo ranches in Pawnee, Oklahoma. He lived until 1942 but she was killed a few years earlier in a car accident. Buffalo Bill shot his last buffalo on Pawnee Bill's Ranch.