By western author Nick Brumby

“I ain’t afraid to love a man. I ain’t afraid to shoot him either.”
— Annie ‘Little Sure Shot’ Oakley

She was America’s first female superstar and a global legend, shining bright in a male-dominated sport.

A once in a lifetime crack shot who thought nothing of amazing millions of people with her shooting skills, Annie Oakley was a 5-foot-nothing, 110-pound Old West legend who actually preferred her privacy to global acclaim.

Born Phoebe Ann Moses in August 1860 in Darke County, Ohio, Oakley started hunting early. Her father’s death in 1866 meant that she had to contribute to help her family survive, so she trapped small animals such as quail for food.

At 8 years old, she killed a squirrel outside her house with her first shot. “It was a wonderful shot, going right through the head from side to side. My mother was so frightened when she learned that I had taken down the loaded gun and shot it that I was forbidden to touch it again for eight months,” Oakley said.

After working as a servant for an abusive family for a time, Oakley returned home as a teenager and returned to her hunting. She was so good even at this stage she earned enough money to pay her mother’s $200 mortgage off completely.

When she was fifteen, Oakley competed against marksman Frank E. Butler, who travelled around the country challenging people to shooting competitions. During the competition, Oakley made all twenty-five shots, and Butler missed one, making Oakley the winner. Butler was so impressed by her skills they were married in August 1876.

The happy couple toured the country. Butler performed as a marksman, Oakley acted as his assistant and would also do some shooting. This was when she adopted the stage name of ‘Oakley.’ In 1882, Butler’s shooting partner became ill, and Oakley filled in. From that moment, Oakley became a star.

In 1884, she met Sitting Bull, the Lakota Sioux leader who defeated General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn. Sitting Bull nicknamed Oakley ‘Watanya Cicillia’ (English translation: Little Sure Shot) after seeing her perform in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Lakota Sioux warrior liked Oakley so much that he gave her his special moccasins to “adopt” her as his daughter.

Oakley quickly became the star of the show. As the headliner of the show, Oakley chose to wear simple, modest clothes instead of flashy costumes, so they wouldn’t detract from her feats as a markswoman.

Oakley’s most famous tricks were almost unbelievable feats of marksmanship. At 30 paces she could split a playing card held edge-on, she hit dimes tossed into the air, she shot cigarettes from her husband’s lips.

When shooting a playing card thrown into the air, she riddled it with holes before it touched the ground (giving rise to ‘punched’ theater tickets being known as ‘Annie Oakleys’).

She would shoot glass balls out of the air. In one test of endurance, Oakley tried to break 5000 glass balls in one day with a shotgun. She loaded her own guns and stood fifteen yards from the traps. After nine hours, she had broken 4,772 balls. In the second thousand, she hit 984 balls, which she said was a record for the time.

But that wasn’t all. Oakley could blast a cork out of a bottle with a shot. She’d shoot while leaning backward, and with the shotgun or rifle upside down. She’d jump over tables and grab a gun off the ground, shooting a ball before it hit the ground. She was also ambidextrous.

According to legend, when in Berlin Annie shot the ash from a cigarette dangling from the lips of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II (he was a prince at the time).

Butler and Oakley stayed with the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for sixteen years. They performed for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in England and toured Spain, Italy, and France. During the performance for Queen Victoria in 1887, the Queen rose and bowed deeply when the American flag came into the arena—the first time a British monarch had saluted the American flag. The crowd roared its approval.

Over the course of her career, Oakley showed people around the world that women were capable and able to handle firearms and even out-shoot men. She encouraged women to learn how to use pistols in order to protect themselves. She was passionate about empowering women and helping children.

During her lifetime, Annie taught upwards of 15,000 women how to shoot. She once said: “I would like to see every woman know how to handle (firearms) as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”

In 1894, Oakley appeared in the 11th commercial motion picture ever made, Thomas Edison’s “Little Sure Shot of the Wild West,” shooting a rifle at targets and small clay pigeons.

Oakley also volunteered to organize a regiment of female sharpshooters during the Spanish-American War. Even though her petition was rejected by President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt named his volunteer cavalry the “Rough Riders” after Oakley’s show title. She repeated the offer at the beginning of World War One.

In 1901, Oakley was injured in a train accident and took a year off from performing after the accident.

Two decades later, Oakley was injured in a car accident in Florida. Her hip and ankle were fractured, and she wore a leg brace until she passed away in Ohio at age 66. Frank Butler died 18 days later. They had been married for fifty years.

In 1984, Annie Oakley was posthumously inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum’s Hall of Fame.

About Nick Brumby

I like a good story. And of all stories, I love westerns the most.

As a kid, I spent far too many afternoons re-watching Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, picking up ‘Shane’ for just one more read, or saddling up beside Ben Cartwright when ‘Bonanza’ was on TV each afternoon.

I’m a former journalist and I love horses, dogs, and the occasional bourbon whiskey. I live with my wife, daughter and our ever-slumbering hound in a 1800’s-era gold mining town – our house is right on top of the last working gold mine in the area. There may not be much gold left, but there’s history wherever you look.

I hope you enjoy my westerns as much as I enjoyed writing them!

Happy trails,

Nick