COWGIRL Iconic: May Lillie

A bespectacled photographer emerged from under a black curtain draped over a massive camera and tripod.  In his right hand he held an instrument that when pressed would take a picture.  In his left hand he held a flash attachment to illuminate his subject.  “On the count of three, Mrs. Lillie,” he warned.  May Manning Lillie stared directly into the lens.  Her cowboy hat cocked on her head, a red kerchief tied around the neck of her white peasant blouse, a black split skirt was belted around her waist, and leather gauntlets covered her hands.  She wore a serious expression as the photographer began counting.  Before he got to two, she raised a six-shooter and pointed it at the camera.  One eye was closed, and the other looked down the barrel of the gun.  Ka-Poof!  The flash attachment fired, and smoke wafted into the air.  “Perfect,” the photographer said smiling, and it was.  The black and white image of cowgirl May demonstrating her skill as a marksman became one of the most widely publicized Wild West posters in the early 1900s.  

May’s life as a trick rider and shooter in Wild West shows was far from the lifestyle in which she was raised.  Born in March 1869 in Philadelphia to Dr. William R. Manning, a prominent physician, and his wife and aide Mary, May and her family were Quakers.  They were quiet, unassuming people, reluctant to draw attention to themselves.  If not for a chance meeting with frontiersman and performer Gordon William Lillie at a Buffalo Bill Cody Wild West show in Philadelphia in 1885, May might have married a modest man from her faith, never venturing far from her birthplace.  Lillie, better known as Pawnee Bill, was a twenty-six-year-old Pawnee Indian interpreter who was smitten with May the moment he saw her. The two married in the summer of 1886 after she graduated from college.

Pawnee Bill was touring the country with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and May was left alone for long periods of time. After learning how to ride and shoot from the ranch hands working the Manning’s spread in Pawnee, Oklahoma, she decided to join her husband in the famous program. The daring lady equestrienne rifle shot soon became a major draw for the traveling show. She charmed the crowds and the press in every city she appeared. Billed as the Champion Girl Shot of the West, May was the only woman in the world able to break targets thrown in the air while riding at full speed on her mustang. 

The Lillies toured the United States and Europe for more than twenty years entertaining audiences of all types, including well-known politicians and royalty. May retired from the Wild West Shows in the mid-1910s and turned her attention to raising buffalo.  

Less than two weeks after their golden wedding anniversary celebration in September 1936, Lillie and May were driving back to their home in Oklahoma when they were involved in a head-on collision.  They were both seriously injured.  May’s injuries proved fatal.

May Manning Lillie was laid to rest at the Highland Cemetery in the Pawnee Indian hills of Pawnee, Oklahoma.  She was sixty-seven years old.  Her memory lives on in the popular photograph she posed for when she was best known as the New Rifle Queen.