Hunting guide to royalty, celebrated marksman and Wild West showman, Adam H. Bogardus spent much of his remarkable life staring through the acrid haze of shotgun smoke.

During the height of his fame, he toured the country, astonishing one and all with his marksmanship, from Irish immigrants packed into the working-class theaters of Manhattan to rough-and-tumble settlers in the cow towns and mining camps of the Wild West.

A native of upstate New York, Bogardus arrived in Illinois in the mid-1850s, finally settling in Elkhart, a small Logan County community 45 miles south of Bloomington.

With a wiry, muscular frame and an uncanny talent for handling firearms, he quickly earned a reputation as an extraordinary shot.

In 1860, Bogardus led a hunting party that included Prince Edward, the eldest son of Queen Victoria. The sportsmen traveled along the line of the Chicago & Alton Railroad from Dwight to Macoupin County, a journey that took the party through Normal and Bloomington. Years later, when Bogardus staged shooting exhibitions throughout Europe, he was reunited with Edward, now King Edward VII, and the two men reminisced about bagging game on the prairies of Central Illinois.

In his autobiography and how-to manual titled "Field, Cover, and Trap Shooting," Bogardus recalled an 1872 hunting expedition in eastern McLean County, when he and an East Coast sportsman bagged 600 prairie chickens in 10 days. Sadly, this splendid game bird would soon be extinct in McLean County.

Bogardus' long and financially successful career as a professional shooter began in 1868 when he defeated a nationally recognized marksman from Detroit. At this time, live birds were used as targets. Passenger pigeons were the favorite target, but competitions also featured domestic pigeons, quail and sometimes sparrows. From a distance of 21 yards, Bogardus brought down 46 of 50 birds, while his competitor hit six fewer "targets." Shortly thereafter, Bogardus captured the Illinois championship.

"He looks, and moves, and talks like a man of nerve," noted The Daily Pantagraph in 1874.

In the 1870s, animal welfare groups campaigned to halt use of live birds in shooting contests. In response, Bogardus and others experimented with inanimate objects, such as hand-blown glass balls and differently shaped clay targets.

In the summer of 1875, the Central Illinois marksman traveled to London, defeating England's favorite son. From that day on he laid claim to the somewhat immodest title "Champion Wing Shot of the World."

In September 1883, on his 50th birthday, Bogardus retired from competitive shooting, though he found ready employment as the star marksman for Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. Soon thereafter, he was the main attraction in his own Wild West exhibition, and two years before his death he even toured with Annie Oakley. Adam Bogardus passed away in 1913 and was laid to rest in the picturesque cemetery atop Elkhart Hill.