Annie Oakley: Sharpshooter and Wild West Icon
Who Was Annie Oakley?
Born Phoebe Ann Moses in 1860 Darke County Ohio, the fifth of seven surviving children, while her sisters played with dolls, Annie Oakley soon became an expert marksmen while hunting with her father, eventually putting enough food on her family’s table by selling buckshot-free game to a local grocer who supplied food to Cincinnati restaurants and hotels—enough to pay off a $200 mortgage on her family’s home.
After a Cincinnati hotelier pitted Annie against a professional traveling sharpshooter named Frank Butler, after Butler posted 24 hits on 25 targets, Annie bested him with a perfect score. Smitten by Annie’s personality, beauty and marksmenship, the two married the following summer, spending the next 50 years together until their deaths in 1926, only three weeks apart.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show
When William “Buffalo Bill” Cody declined to hire Oakley for his wildly popular Wild West show, Buffalo Bill would later change his mind after his world champion sharpshooter quit the show upon losing his prized firearms when a Mississippi River steamboat sank beneath the show’s performers.
Annie and her husband toured the U.S. and Europe with Buffalo Bill’s show from 1885 to 1901, thrilling audiences when Annie would shoot a cigar from her husband’s lips, or split a playing card edge-on from 30 paces. Nicknamed “Watanya Cicilla” or “Little sure shot” by fellow performer Sitting Bull, the now legendary victor at the Battle of Little Bighorn just eight years before, the Native American adopted Oakley as his daughter after giving the sharpshooter a pair of moccasins he wore during Custer’s Last Stand.
Spanish-American War Efforts
When war clouds arose before the start of the Spanish-American War, Oakley sent a letter to President William McKinley, indicating that she hope the President’s sound judgement and diplomacy could prevent war from breaking out, “But in case of such an event,” she wrote,
“I am ready to place a company of fifty lady sharpshooters at your disposal. Every one of them will be an American and as they will furnish their own arms and ammunition will be little if any expense to the government.”
Annie Oakley
For his part, McKinley quite respectfully declined her offer. After her death in 1926, movies and books would help perpetuate the legend of Annie Oakley, including a hit TV series in the 1950s, and the long-running Broadway Musical, Annie Get Your Gun, forever cementing Annie Oakley into America’s nostalgic fascination with the American Wild West.