Bob Limbert: "The Man from the Sawtooths"

              BOB LIMBERT

BOB LIMBERT
The Man from the Sawtooths


Naturalist, Photographer, Writer, Explorer, Big Game Hunter and
WORLD CHAMPION EXHIBITION REVOLVER SHOT



Exhibition Revolver Shooting by BOB LIMBERT
World's Champion Exhibition Revolver Shot

Breaking a tossed target, using the gun upside down


Those who take an interest in pistol and revolver shooting will have a real treat when they see Bob Limbert give an exhibition of fancy shooting and marks-manship.

You have no doubt read stories of western gun artists who did almost miraculous shooting with their revolvers, things which you no doubt deemed impossible.  Bob makes these things a living reality, using standard ammunition in his shooting and not trick or shot cartridges of any kind.  In all of his exhibitions he invites any committee, which may be appointed by the audience, to examine his ammunition and guns at any time.

Although recognized as the world's champion in his line he makes no pretense of being a professional showman.  With him, revolver shooting is a hobby.  He learned his shooting in the rough and keeps in practice amid the jagged peaks of the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho both for his own amusement and the entertainment of those who happen to visit his Red Fish Lodge from time to time.

All of us have heard of the old western quick draw, but few, very few, have ever seen it.  Bob gives a remarkable demonstration of just how quick it is possible to become by having any man, selected from among the spectators, stand in front of him fifteen feet distant with a cocked but empty gun aimed at his chest as he stands with his hands in the air and his guns in his belt.  It sounds impossible, but he actually draws his gun and snaps it before his imaginary opponent can snap his.

Following are a few of his more difficult shots, all of which are performed with revolvers using solid lead

Breaking a target tossed from the tip of his shoe

 bullets.  In tossing, his targets have approximately a twenty-foot raise and a twenty-foot drop.

Tosses balls in the air and breaks them, using a gun in either hand—does the same thing using the gun held upside down—takes a gun in each hand and breaks two targets simultaneously, which are placed twenty feet apart—tosses balls between his legs, over his shoulder, around his body, under his arms and from off his toes and shoots and breaks them—tosses a ball backward between his legs and whirls and breaks it—stands with his hands in the air allowing a person to jam a cocked but unloaded gun against his ribs and then disarms them before they can pull the trigger—tosses a common pin in the air and hits it with a bullet—sets up an axe with a glass ball on each side of it and then splits a bullet on the blade, breaking both targets at once—suspends a target by a string and cuts string with a bullet and firing a second time breaks the target before it falls to the ground—tosses a brick in the air and breaks it into two pieces and then pulverizes one of the pieces before it strikes the ground—has an assistant hold a card edgewise towards him and cuts it in two pieces with a bullet—tosses coins in the air, down to the size of a penny, and hits them with a bullet—does mirror shooting over his shoulder, under his arms, between his legs, etc.— holds a target at arm's length shoulder high, drops it and with the same hand whips out a gun, shooting and breaking it before it has fallen a distance of eighteen inches—tosses an iron washer in the air and hits it, follows that by shooting through the hole and when people doubt it, proves it to them by pasting a piece of paper over the hole and doing it again—tosses a common four ounce bottle, with a piece of paper pasted over the neck, in the air and then shoots through the neck of the bottle knocking the bottom out without breaking the sides—and these are only a few of the stunt shots he does for you.


This is Real Shooting and He Actually Does It
If indoors, all he asks for are a few two-inch planks eighteen to twenty feet high, standing on end, with electric light globes strung along the sides and a couple of small boxes of sand.  For targets he uses composition balls which he casts in molds made especially for the purpose.  A great part of his shooting is at objects borrowed from the spectators.  The way he arranges the backgrounds there is absolutely no danger from a glancing bullet.

His skill with a pair of revolvers is something you will have to see or you won't believe possible.  You will say of Bob Limbert and his shooting that it is the most remarkable thing of its kind you have ever witnessed.




An Evening with a Nature Photographer
An interesting account of a nature photographers experiences in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho together with the bird imitations used in securing many of the pictures.

Much of Bob Limbert's success as a nature photographer he owes to his ability as a bird imitator.  As a whistler he possesses the unique ability of whistling two different notes at one and the same time.  You will fail, perhaps, to grasp it until you hear him whistle a solo of popular music and then you realize you are hearing both alto and soprano at once.

Following this he shows you some of the simpler methods of bird calling, things anybody can do, and then he takes you on an evening's trip through birdland where you hear, with a fidelity to nature which fools even the birds themselves, scores of bird and woodland melodies.  You learn many interesting things about birds which you never knew before; intimate details of bird life, some of them serious, some of them humorous, and all of them things which will do much to make your next outing trip into the woods more enjoyable.

For instance, you will hear the call of the common quail, or Bob White, and have your attention called to a slurring note you have no doubt overlooked before.  You will hear the assembly call of an old male after the flock has been broken up and scattered, and for the time being you will imagine yourself in a cornfield working behind a bird dog.  You will learn that in some of the birds their notes are so high pitched as to be almost indistinguishable to the human ear.

You will have explained to you the little variations in bird melodies, by means of which birds understand and sense each other's meaning.  You will learn with surprise that upon the temperament of the bird caller depends his success; in other words, it is practically impossible to make birds respond to a whistled note unless the caller is in the proper frame of mind.  Your attention will be called to a series of bird calls all in the same key and note but all having a different meaning, the same as when
 a mother calls her child it can tell or sense somewhat by the emphasis of her voice as to her meaning.  In fact, you will learn many things about bird and wild animal psychology you never have known before.  He brings home to you the importance of bird and wild animal life to the human race, of the vital importance of bird and wild life conservation and how it affects our every-day life.

All this and much more will you hear from a man whose life is spent continually in the open, living in intimate association with the things he tells about.

Following are a few of the bird and animal calls on his program:

Chickadee
Tree Sparrow
Harris Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
Bullock's Oriole
Cardinal Redbird
Robin
Eastern and Western Meadowlark
Chewink
Rose Breasted Grosbeak
Carolina Wren
Flicker or Yellow Hammer
Yellow Breasted Chat
Night Hawk
Western Poorwill
Whip-Poor-Will
Ring Dove
Crested Titmouse
Mourning Dove
Bob White
Spotted Sandpiper
Yellow Leg Snipe
Plover
Avocet
Sandhill Crane
Screech Owl
Horned Owl
Young Chick and a Hen
Young and Old Duck
Loon
Red Tailed Hawk
Rain Crow or Yellow Billed Cuckoo
Turkey
Coyote howling
Otter whistling
Puppy crying
Ground Squirrel chirping
Marmor chirping
Cricket chirping
and others.




The Craters of the Moon—in Idaho
The account of the first trip across America's greatest volcanic area by the man who made it.

If a piece of the moon, dead, frozen, silent and mysterious, were to be suddenly hurled against the surface of the earth by some heavenly catastrophe, would it be worth visiting?


Just suppose it were possible to intimately explore the great volcanic crater pits, the seas of frozen lava, the bottomless pits and caverns, the stone rivers and lava cascades, the sputter cones, canyons with walls hundreds of feet high and the things of like desolation which one so dimly sees when gazing at the moon through the lenses of a powerful telescope; would it not be worth visiting?  Would it not be worth hearing about from the first man to ever explore it?

Yet, in southern Idaho, beyond a barrier of rocks and gigantic boulders, varying in size up to that of a large building, is a land of flaming color, strange ice caves, vermilion red hillsides, vast stone lakes, a vivid cobalt blue in color, gigantic crater pits streaked with rings of green, orange and yellow; in all, a riot of fantastic shape and color, so ghostly, so weird and so utterly unearthly as to create the illusion of a dead satellite.

Strange to say, a region like this actually exists and Bob Limbert was the first white man to ever thoroughly explore it.  The account of his experiences, written by himself, appeared in a recent issue of the National Geographic Magazine under the title of The Craters of the Moon—In Idaho.

This strange anomaly of Nature, he tells you about in a unique evening's entertainment, illustrating his talk with both motion pictures and beautifully colored slides.





BOOK BOB LIMBERT

The Sawtooth Mountain Range of Idaho.  The land he lives in and tells about.



Scenes and Sights of the Sawtooths
An Absorbingly interesting motion picture diary of a saddle and pack horse camping trip through the great Sawtooth and Salmon River Mountain Ranges of central Idaho.  Consisting of motion pictures, colored lantern slides and hand painted photographic enlargements.

An outing picture and an evening's entertainment which breathes of the big outdoors, of hunting, fishing, wild life scenery and camping.  From the standpoint of the sportsman, be he big game hunter, fisherman or nature lover, one good thing follows another.

You will see, from beginning to the end, a saddle and pack horse trip through one of the greatest mountain countries in the world.  Remember these are not staged pictures but scenes of an actual trip made through the Sawtooth Mountains and the Salmon River district of central Idaho—in other words, they are the real thing.

Bob Limbert is a typical westerner whose home the greater part of every year is amid the high hills and mountains.  In other words, his most intimate associates are the deer, elk, sheep, mountain goats, bear and other wild creatures he talks about.  He tells his story in an inimitable and graphic western style, taking his listeners with him on every step of the journey.  You not only see but you actually experience the trip along with him.

His work in securing this material entailed not only hours but days of patient stalking along game trails, at salt licks, and waiting for reflection and cloud effects.  His story of doing this work is extremely fascinating.  When you are not laughing at some of his humorous experiences you are absorbingly interested in his serious ones.

You will see more than just motion pictures, for he carries with him a number of hand-colored lantern slides and a series of oil-painted photographic enlargements, some of them 40 × 60 inches in size, which are in reality in the nature of an art exhibit.

In presenting this evening's entertainment you will be to no added expense for an operator or projectionist, as Mr. Limbert carries and operates his own projection machines.





What They Say of Him—

The National Geographic Magazine Bulletin says of him:
As one of the first white men to brave the vast volcanic region of southern Idaho, 'Bob' Limbert brings to us, in description and photograph, the hundreds of remarkable craters, abysses, ice and other caves of this awe inspiring region.  Here he found unusual lava formations, rivaling in size and beauty even the famed lava floods of Vesuvius and Mauna Loa.  Magnetic peaks rendered compasses useless, so the explorers had to rely on the flights of doves to guide them back to water holes absolutely essential for their existence. * * * etc.


Popular Science Magazine:
A weird land, a country so strange as to suggest comparison with the landscape of the moon—lately entertained its first party of explorers led by 'Bob' Limbert.  An amazing region—all suppositions regarding it proven erroneous—impressive in its granduer—neither Vesuvius, Mauna Loa or Kilauea more remarkable.


Sunset Magazine:
An expert photographer with both still and motion camera.  Many pictures, birds especially, secured by calling to him through imitating their calls.  The listener need only to close his eyes to complete the illusion—an artist—an expert shot—his is the character of the typical explorer, the more difficult and dangerous the venture the better he likes it.


Omaha World-Herald:
The most astounding exhibition of fancy shooting and marksmanship and uncanny quickness ever witnessed.  Something far different from what was expected.


Omaha World-Herald:
Supplemented with his uncanny ability of using a gun is his ability to imitate the calls of various birds and animals and his knowledge of the sounds that will attract the wild creatures.  This and his skill as a photographer he uses in securing his marvelous views of wild life.


Chicago Daily News:
From out of the wilds of Idaho, where men are men, even if they sometimes whistle over the radio like birds, comes 'Bob' Limbert, naturalist, lecturer, wild life photographer and champion revolver shot.  He challenges anybody who thinks they are good with a gun.


Walton League Bulletin:
'Bob' Limbert was a sensation at the National Convention at Omaha last April, and he'll prove a sensation anywhere he's booked.  He's a born showman.  One is better off for having spent an evening with this breezy Westerner, who entertains and instructs in his own original way.


Salt Lake Tribune:
Being a naturalist, as he assuredly is, he imparts a fidelity to life and records habits not attained by the average worker in this field.


Pocatello (Idaho) Tribune:
Something more than a naturalist.  A find, a chap that can teach book-scientists many truths and deeply interest all such as favor the outdoor life and, especially, bring delight to the hearts that thrill response to the song of a bird.


Idaho Statesman:
A continual hunter with flash light and camera who violates no game laws and brings back permanent proof of his prowess.


KMA Radio Station:
One of the best, if not the best, features we have ever put on.  We want him again.


Pathe Exchange, Inc., Tom North, Mgr. Chicago Office:
You may have had peeps and looks and glances and all that sort of thing but when you get an eye full of what 'Bob' Limbert has to show you—there is no use trying to tell about it.  Just let it sell itself to you.




Something About Him—
Perhaps the best way of introducing Bob Limbert of Idaho, outdoorsman, naturalist, photographer, explorer, writer and big game hunter, is to quote briefly from a recent issue of Sunset Magazine, which, under the title of An Interesting Westerner, has this and much more to say:

In Idaho, hard at work, is a man who for picturesqueness and variety of accomplishment has few equals.  He might have lasting fame, but fame means little to 'Bob' Limbert.  He is always to absorbed in the task of the moment to give much though to himself.

It was 'Bob' who, through photographs and articles secured on a hazardous hiking trip across the most marvelous of lava flows, first brought to public notice through the pages of the National Geographic Magazine the new wonderland which he named the 'Craters of the Moon.'

President Coolidge recognized his achievement by creating the region a National Monument by presidential proclamation.

Again, he is the only person who has ever passed completely through the great Bruneau Canyon of southern Idaho.  This canyon is now known as the deepest narrow canyon in the United States and ranks well up among the scenic wonders of the world.  Next he was heard of through the columns of scientific magazines as the discoverer of one of the largest areas of pictographic writing known in the world.  This was a place some thirty-five acres in extent in which every rock is completely covered with crude drawings made by a race of people of which the modern Indians have no knowledge.

A few other things he has found in his wanderings with his saddle and pack horse outfit are one of the largest known deposits of Indian mounds in the west and two natural bridges far surpassing in size the National Bridge of Virginia.

Just recently he found what is believed will prove upon further investigation to be the largest petrified forest ever discovered.

Due to his knowledge of the west and the out of the way places he was recently commissioned by the Union Pacific R. R. to write and illustrate the booklet Unknown Places in Idaho.

At the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915 he designed and installed exhibits winning for himself the highest award possible to give, the Medal of Honor for Arrangement and Decoration.  His work was awarded personally two additional Medals of Honor, three gold, five silver, four bronze and one honorable mention.

For several years he served as field naturalist and taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institute and several eastern colleges, collecting and preparing specimens in practically every state in the west.  After that he operated a commercial taxidermy shop in Boise, Idaho, until, when he could no longer resist the call of the wild, he decided to spend his time in the high hills where, as he expressed it, he could see the living, breathing, creatures instead of their dead and stuffed images.

During the past three years he has spent from four to six months of every year with his saddle and pack-horse outfit in the wilds of the Sawtooth Mountains of central Idaho, photographing, sketching, hunting and taking motion pictures of wild life and scenery.

Today he is recognized as the world's champion exhibition revolver shot.  It has brought him offers of theatrical engagements from vaudeville circuits, fair associations and others, but he has preferred to spend his time in the big open spaces of central Idaho.

His place, located on Redfish Lake near Stanley, Idaho, is fast becoming the Mecca of those sportsmen who enjoy mountains, big game, fishing and scenery par excellence.