Annie Oakley
Little Sure Shot
1860–1926 A.D.

Whether it was for the 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get your Gun or the 1950 Hollywood adaptation—or even a TV series a few years later, Annie Oakley has certainly been a popular character in American history and popular culture. Of course, as often happens with such adaptations based on a real historical person, the stage and screen depictions were not quite accurate with Annie’s life. For example, in the play/movie Annie first meets her future husband Frank Butler, who was depicted as a performer in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show, to compete in a shooting contest. Actually though the shooting contest was real, they were already married when they joined the Buffalo Bill show. Also, the actresses portraying Annie were much older than the teenager that she was. In addition, the TV series depicted Annie fighting baddies on the Arizona frontier—call it dramatic license.

However, what the play and movie did get right was that it depicted Annie as a skilled sharpshooter, who was to perform in competitions and stage and film shows around the world. As one source put it, this gifted artist “used her astonishing marksmanship to escape a poor childhood and become the first female superstar in what had been a male-dominated profession.”

Born in August, 1860 as Phoebe Ann Mosey, Annie’s family lived in a remote county in Ohio along the Indiana border. Her father and later her stepfather died, and then her family’s poverty forced Annie to develop her hunting and trapping skills, to provide for her family. Because of this she could not regularly attend school. In 1870 she and her sister were admitted to the county infirmary where she learned domestic skills. However, that year she was “bound out” or sent to work for a local family as a nanny, where she was mistreated. Annie later called the unnamed couple “The Wolves” then two years later she ran away to return to her mother’s home.

Annie was about seven, when she began trapping and hunting to support her family, and in the process she became an expert shot. The game animals she sold to local merchants ended up on the dinner tables of hotels in nearby cities. At one point at age 15 she was so successful that she helped pay off the family home mortgage.

Her marksmanship skills soon made her quite a local celebrity, and since shooting contests were popular at the time, she entered one on Thanksgiving, 1875. The contest was part of a shooting demonstration/show operated by traveling marksman Frank E. Butler. It turned out that Butler had placed a $100 bet with a local hotel owner that Butler could beat any local marksman. The hotel owner arranged the match between Butler and Annie, and when Butler lost the match it was the beginning of a romance that culminated in marriage in 1876—or a few years later according to a subsequent account.

Annie and Butler later signed to appear with a circus in 1881 when she assumed her professional name but its origin was unclear. Some thought she took her name from the Cincinnati neighborhood of Oakeley where they lived, and another account stated that she borrowed the name of a man she encountered earlier when he paid her train fare.

Frank and Annie joined the Buffalo Bill show in 1885 at a time when she encountered a period of professional rivalry with a fellow performer. The differences caused Annie to drop out of the show for a time and to return when her competitor had gone. She and Frank were in the show, when the Buffalo Bill performers traveled to Europe for a three year tour, including the Paris Exposition of 1889. That tour was enough to assure Oakley as America’s top performer—at the time and she earned more than any fellow performer—except for Buffalo Bill himself.

Annie and Frank also appeared in other shows and about this time her name became part of an American expression. Frequently distributed complimentary show tickets which usually had holes punched in them to prevent later reselling. Annie often shot holes in playing cards as part of her act, so over time such tickets became known as “Annie Oakleys.”

While in Europe Annie appeared before several monarchs like Britain’s Queen Victoria, the King of Italy and the French president. During one performance before the German Kaiser Wilhelm she is supposed to have shot the ashes off a cigarette he held in his mouth. When World War I began some years ago, there was speculation about what would have happened with the war’s progress, if she had missed the cigarette?

From 1892 to 1904 Annie and Butler settled in New Jersey, and (at the same time) Annie advocated women serving in combat, and specifically in the current Spanish American War. She wrote President McKinley, suggesting that she could offer 50 “lady sharpshooters” who would not only be available for combat, but also provide their own firearms. However, her offer was not accepted.

Then in 1901 Annie was injured in a railroad accident and suffered temporary paralysis and had several spinal surgeries. She left the Buffalo Bill show to take on a less strenuous position appearing in a 1902 stage play written for her—The Western Girl. In the storyline she used various firearms to trick the bad guys.

During her career, it is thought that Annie had instructed more than 15,000 American women to use a firearm, since she believed that it was necessary that they should learn to shoot. Her reasoning was that shooting was not just physical and mental exercise but also necessary for personal defense.

Then Annie became a film performer in the 1890s when pioneer Thomas Edison (a friend of Buffalo Bill) arranged for several performers in his show to appear in Kinetoscopes—an early type of film. That same year the Butlers appeared in another film where she performed in a 21 minute presentation of a shooting exhibition where she shot at various stationary as well as moving targets.

However, Annie’s celebrity brought some unwelcome attention when newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst published an article stating that Annie Oakley had been jailed for stealing to support a cocaine habit. (One later reported that the real culprit was a burlesque performer who used her name.) However, since she was very anxious to be considered a proper lady, Annie filed lawsuits against the newspapers that libeled her. She won or settled 54 of the suits but it proved expensive and occupied a great deal of time.

During World War I as she had earlier in the Spanish conflict, she offered to raise a group of women sharpshooters. However, when she got no response from the government she worked at raising money for the Red Cross and performing shooting demonstrations in military camps.

Annie continued to perform even in her sixties, such as in a contest in 1922 when she hit 100 clay tablets from 16 yards. Even after a 1922 auto accident injury that meant she wore a steel brace on her leg, she continued to set new records. Yet, by 1925 she was failing and died in Greenville, Ohio at age 66 in 1926. Butler died several weeks later. They had been married for 50 years but had no children.

In Annie Get Your Gun Annie was depicted as being adopted into the Lakota (Sioux) nation because of the admiration from fellow performer Sitting Bull. Several years earlier he had been a leader in Custer’s defeat in 1876. The “adoption” was a reality since Sitting Bull did tour with the Buffalo Bill show and he and Annie did develop a mutual sense of respect and affection. Also, he dubbed her “Little Sure Shot.”

Annie Oakley was honored with being inducted into the Trapshooting Halle Fame, the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Anne Adams is a retired church staffer. She lives in East Texas and has an historical column for a local newspaper. She has published in Christian and secular publications for more than 40 years.

References:
Wikipedia
Public Broadcasting Station