She was a family legend, a nameless woman who had performed in the Barnum & Bailey Circus in London, England in the late 1800\'s.
In 1893, just after the World Col.
She performed in dime museums and opera houses during the winter months and traveled with circuses from April to October.
And thus, Mattie Lee Price was Forgotten in Cartersville even though she became a very famous Georgia Magnetic/Electric Girl in entertainment circles.
Mattie\'s name was never again printed in the Cartersville newspaper.
The self important Cartersville men immediately sold the remainder of Mattie\'s contract to a Cincinnati theater man and hightailed it back to Georgia.
A problem arose when a dime museum owner in Cincinnati filed a lawsuit against the gentlemen of the stock company.
They thought she must be electric or magnetic or perhaps she accomplished the feats through pure animal magnetism.
Audiences were astounded, and newspapers reported her abilities to be beyond human strength.
Ninety-pound Mattie Lee Price could lift 2 or 3 large men in a chair and twist hickory sticks right out of the hands of the several men that held it.
The new company started touring immediately.
Since Lula Hurst was already making a fortune giving her strong woman act, the men decided to form a stock company that very night and make some money of their own.
Mattie gave her first appearance at age 14 in front of the most influential men of Cartersville, Georgia.
After witnessing Lula Hurst on stage in early 1884, Mattie Lee Price was immediately able to duplicate Lulu\'s mysterious feats of strength.
She was the second of the Georgia Wonder girls who came onto the entertainment scene in the early 1880\'s.
In reality, she was not an acrobat, a rider of white horses, or Indian.
Family elders said she was an acrobat, a rider of white horses, and an American Indian who had run away from the reservation as a child to join the circus.
There was no bible, no record, no remnant of this circus star to remember her by.
She was a family legend, a nameless woman who had performed in the Barnum & Bailey Circus in London, England in the late 1800\'s
