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10 Things You May Not Know About Annie Oakley

By: Christopher Klein

Updated: August 24, 2023 | Original: November 3, 2016

1. Annie Oakley was not her real name.

The fifth of seven surviving children, Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses on August 13, 1860, in rural Darke County, Ohio. Although she became a Wild West folk hero, the sharpshooter spent her entire childhood in the Buckeye State. Called “Annie” by her sisters, she reportedly chose Oakley as her professional surname after the name of an Ohio town near her home.

2. Oakley proved an expert shot at a young age.

While her sisters played with dolls, Annie tagged along with her father as he hunted and trapped in the woods. From an early age, Annie showed an extraordinary talent for marksmanship. “I was eight years old when I made my first shot,” she later recalled, “and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made.” Steadying her father’s old muzzle-loading rifle on a porch rail, she picked off a squirrel sitting on a fence in her front yard with a head shot, allowing its meat to be preserved.

The young girl’s shooting not only put food on the table, it eventually allowed her mother to pay off the $200 mortgage on the family house through the money Annie earned by selling the game she hunted to a local grocery store that supplied hotels and restaurants in Cincinnati.

3. She outgunned a professional sharpshooter—and then married him.

A Cincinnati hotelkeeper who knew of the country girl’s reputation arranged a shooting contest between 15-year-old Annie and a traveling professional sharpshooter named Frank Butler who regularly challenged local marksmen as he toured the country. Butler, who reportedly chuckled when he first saw his opponent, hit 24 out of 25 targets. The teenager hit all 25. After winning the shooting match, Annie won Butler’s heart. The two married the following summer and remained wedded for 50 years. They died within three weeks of each other in 1926.

4. A steamboat accident led to Oakley’s big show business break.

William “Buffalo Bill” Cody refused to hire Oakley for his Wild West show after their first encounter because he already had an expert marksman, world champion Captain Adam Bogardus, as part of his traveling troupe. However, in late 1884 a steamboat carrying the show’s performers sank to the bottom of the Mississippi River. The passengers made it off safely, but the sharpshooter’s prized firearms met a watery demise. Struggling with his equilibrium and his new guns for months after the accident, Bogardus quit Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in March 1885, creating an opening that was filled by Oakley.

5. Chief Sitting Bull considered Oakley his adopted daughter.

Eight years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn , the Lakota Sioux leader who orchestrated the defeat of General George Custer’s troops attended one of Oakley’s performances in St. Paul, Minnesota, in March 1884. Mesmerized by her marksmanship, the Native American chief sent $65 to her hotel in order to get an autographed photograph. “I sent him back his money and a photograph, with my love, and a message to say I would call the following morning,” Oakley recalled. “The old man was so pleased with me, he insisted upon adopting me, and I was then and there christened ‘Watanya Cicilla,’ or ‘Little Sure Shot.’”

In addition to a nickname that followed Oakley the rest of her life, Sitting Bull also reportedly gave her a pair of moccasins that he had worn at Little Bighorn. The two became even closer friends the following year when Sitting Bull joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show for a four-month stint. “He is a dear, faithful, old friend, and I’ve great respect and affection for him,” Oakley wrote of Sitting Bull.

6. Oakley offered to raise a regiment of sharpshooting women to fight in the Spanish-American War.

As the drums of war sounded on April 5, 1898, Oakley penned a note to President William McKinley on her custom letterhead, which showed her toting a gun while riding a bike and touted her as “America’s Representative Lady Shot.” The performer told the president that she felt confident that his good judgment would prevent war from breaking out between the United States and Spain before adding: “But in case of such an event 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.” That offer and a similar one Oakley made during World War I were not accepted.

7. She sued William Randolph Hearst for libel and forced him to pay $27,000.

On August 11, 1903, two of Hearst’s Chicago newspapers reported that a destitute Oakley had been arrested for stealing a pair of men’s pants to pay for her cocaine addiction. In spite of the fact that Oakley hadn’t been in Chicago since the previous winter, newspapers across the country reprinted the story. The truth was that the woman who was arrested was a burlesque dancer posing as Oakley. Although most newspapers printed retractions, Oakley vowed that “someone will pay for this dreadful mistake.” She spent the next six years filing suit against 55 newspapers in the largest libel action the country had ever seen. She won or settled 54 of those suits, including the judgment against Hearst.

8. She competed at Wimbledon.

Before Wimbledon became world-famous for its annual tennis tournament, the London suburb was better known in sporting circles for hosting England’s biggest shooting event of the summer. While appearing with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show in London to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, Oakley took part in the rifle competition on Wimbledon Common on July 20, 1887, as the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, watched from the crowd. Although she was more proficient with a shotgun than a rifle, the London Evening News reported Oakley was “far and away” the best shot in the show, surpassing the performance of her rival Lillian Smith.

9. She was not an advocate for women’s suffrage.

Throughout Oakley’s life, she campaigned for equal pay for equal work. Although vocal in battling discrimination in the economic arena and advocating the participation of women in the military, she did not speak out for the right of women to vote . She hedged that the concept was acceptable “if only the good women voted.”

10. Her name is synonymous with free tickets.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, ushers traditionally punched a hole or two in free tickets to the circus, theater or sporting events in order to differentiate them from those of paying customers when tabulating receipts. The pock-marked tickets resembled the playing cards that Oakley would shoot holes through during her performances, which led to free admissions being referred to as “Annie Oakleys.” According to the Dickson Baseball Dictionary, the term also became a part of baseball lingo to refer to a walk because it was a “free pass” to first base.

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Annie Oakley

(1860 – 1926)

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses—called Annie by her family—on August 13, 1860, in Darke County, Ohio. This unassuming woman, who would perform before royalty and presidents, came from humble beginnings. When Annie was 6, her father, Jacob Moses, died of pneumonia—leaving her mother, Susan Wise Moses, with six children and little else. Annie’s mother remarried but her second husband, Dan Brumbaugh, died soon after, again leaving her with a new baby.

At the age of 8 or 9, Annie went to live with Superintendent Edington’s family at the Darke County Infirmary, which housed the elderly, the orphaned, and the mentally ill. In exchange for helping with the children, Annie received an education and learned the skill of sewing from Mrs. Edington, which she would later use to make her own costumes. Perhaps this early experience of working in such a sobering place aroused Annie’s lifelong compassion for children. She remained with the Edingtons until she was 13 or 14.

When she returned to her family, Annie’s mother had married a third time to Joseph Shaw. Even with this remarriage, the family finances were marginal. Annie used her father’s old Kentucky rifle to hunt small game for the Katzenberger brother’s grocery store in Greenville, Ohio, where it was resold to hotels and restaurants in Cincinnati, 80 miles away. Annie was so successful at hunting that she was able to pay the $200 mortgage on her mother’s house with the money she earned. She was 15 years old.

Her noted shooting ability brought an invitation from Jack Frost, a hotel owner in Cincinnati who had purchased her game, to participate in a shooting contest against a well-known marksman, Frank E. Butler.

Butler was on tour with several other marksmen. While on the road, he typically offered challenges to local shooters. Annie won the match with twenty-five shots out of twenty-five attempts. Butler missed one of his shots. This amazing girl entranced Butler, and the two shooters began a courtship that resulted in marriage on August 23, 1876.

Annie and Frank Butler first appeared in a show together May 1, 1882. Butler’s usual partner was ill and Annie filled in by holding objects for Frank to shoot at, and doing some of her own shooting. It was at this time that Annie adopted the stage name of Oakley. Off stage, she was always Mrs. Frank Butler. For the next few years, the Butlers traveled across the country giving shooting exhibitions with their dog, George, as an integral part of the act.

At a March 1884 performance in St. Paul, Minnesota, Annie befriended the Lakota leader Sitting Bull. The victor over George Armstrong Custer at the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull was impressed with Oakley’s shooting, her modest appearance, and her self-assured manner. Although Sitting Bull was still a political prisoner at Fort Yates, he was in town for an appearance, and had arranged to meet Oakley. They became fast friends. It was Sitting Bull who dubbed her “Little Sure Shot.”

In 1884, the Butlers joined the Sells Brothers Circus as “champion rifle shots,” but only stayed with the circus for one season. After a brief period on their own, Butler and Oakley joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West in 1885. This was a significant turning point in Annie Oakley’s life and in her relationship with Butler. Until this time either Butler had received top billing or they had shared the limelight. However, with the Wild West, Oakley was the star. It was her name on the advertising posters as “Champion Markswoman.” Butler happily accepted the position as her manager and assistant. Oakley and Butler prospered with the Wild West and remained with the show for seventeen years.

In 1887, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West toured England to join in the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. When the show opened that May, Oakley was the subject of considerable press due to her shooting skills and presence. This tour also helped Oakley increase her growing collection of shooting medals, awards, and trophies.

When the Wild West returned to Europe in 1889, Oakley had become a seasoned performer and earned star billing. The troupe stayed in Paris for a six-month exhibition, and then traveled to other regions of France, Italy, and Spain. Oakley proved especially popular with women, and Buffalo Bill made the most of her fame to demonstrate that shooting was neither detrimental, nor too intense for women and children.

Oakley and Butler’s desire for less extensive traveling, as well as a serious train accident that injured her back, caused them to leave the show in 1901. However, she continued to perform and eventually joined another wild west show, “The Young Buffalo Show,” in 1911. During this period, Butler signed a contract as a representative for the Union Metallic Cartridge Company in Connecticut. This was a position that allowed both Butler and Oakley to make endorsements for the company and to continue their shooting exhibitions. Finally, in 1913, the couple retired from the arena and settled down in Cambridge, Maryland.

While in Cambridge, the Butlers welcomed a new member into their family, their dog Dave. Named for a friend, Dave Montgomery of the comedy team of Montgomery and Stone, Dave was to be a constant companion to the Butlers. When they returned to the arena, Dave was to become an important part of the act—one trick was Annie shooting an apple from the top of Dave’s head. In 1917, they moved to Pinehurst, North Carolina. That same year, Buffalo Bill Cody died. Annie Oakley wrote a touching eulogy for Cody, and the passing of a golden era.

The United States was pulled into World War I in 1917, and Oakley offered to raise a regiment of woman volunteers to fight in the war. She had made the same offer during the Spanish-American War; neither time was it accepted. She also volunteered to teach marksmanship to the troops. Oakley gave her time to the National War Council of the Young Men’s Christian Association, War Camp Community Service, and the Red Cross. Dave became the “Red Cross Dog” by sniffing out donations of cash hidden in handkerchiefs.

Oakley began making plans for a comeback in 1922. Attracting large crowds in Massachusetts, New York, and major cities, she had plans to star in a motion picture. Unfortunately, at the end of the year, she and Butler were severely injured in an automobile accident. It took Oakley more than a year to recover from her injuries. By 1924, she was performing again, but her recovery did not last long. By 1925, she was frail and in poor health. She and Butler moved to her hometown in Ohio to be near her family. They attended shooting matches in the local area, and Oakley began to write her memoirs, which were published in newspapers across the country.

In 1926, after fifty happy years of marriage, the Butlers died. Annie Oakley died on November 3 and Frank Butler died November 21, within three weeks of each other. Both died of natural causes after a long and adventuresome life.

From her humble roots as Phoebe Ann Moses to taking center stage as Annie Oakley—champion shooter and star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West—this remarkable woman is remembered as a western folk hero, American legend, and icon. Throughout her career, Oakley maintained her dignity and propriety while quietly proving that she was superior to most men on the shooting range. Thanks to Hollywood and history, the legend of Annie Oakley endures into the twenty-first century through motion pictures, television, on the stage, in history books, and in museums.

Interested in learning more about Annie Oakley?

Take a look at our suggested reading list .

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How Annie Oakley, “Princess of the West,” Preserved Her Ladylike Reputation

Born in 1860, the famed female sharpshooter skillfully cultivated an image of a daredevil performer with proper Victorian morals

Jess Righthand

“Famous Woman Crack Shot. . . Steals to Secure Cocaine.” It would have seemed, on August 11, 1903, the day this headline first appeared in two of William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers, that Annie Oakley would be the last woman behind such a despicable act. And yet it was she, the newspapers claimed, who was facing a 45-day sentence in a Chicago prison for literally stealing a man’s breeches to get her fix. This 28-year-old woman, the newspapers claimed, looked to be almost 40, her “striking beauty” entirely gone from her face.

The headlines were laden with fallacies. Having retired from Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show two years earlier in 1901, Oakley had been leading a quiet existence on the New Jersey shore, far from the scene of the alleged crime. She had never used cocaine; she had never stolen anyone’s trousers. She was actually almost 43 years old.

Newspapers across the country got wind of the story, and soon similar headlines inundated the national media. It surfaced that a burlesque performer named Maude Fontanella, using the name “Any Oakley,” was the true culprit. Oakley demanded that the newspapers retract their stories, but it was too late. The damage to her formerly pristine public image as the “princess of the West” inside the shooting arena and a proper Victorian lady in all other aspects of life—an image Oakley tended painstakingly throughout her career—had been done.

All that was left was to seek retribution. For the next seven years she would sue 55 different newspapers for libel, the largest action of its kind in history. When her last appeal concluded in 1910, seven years after the first libelous newspaper headline appeared, she had won or settled 54 out of 55 suits, winning the then enormous sum of $27,500 in her suit against Hearst’s Chicago newspapers. In spite of all her legal victories, Oakley actually lost money once expenses were accounted for; vindicating her reputation was more important.

Like the many clay pigeons she had shot out of thin air, when it came to cultivating and preserving her own image, Oakley was spot on. “She was one of the first American celebrities who was really branding herself, and she was very shrewd about her own marketing,” says Virginia Scharff, a history professor at the University of New Mexico and Women of the West chair at the Autry National Center in Los Angeles. Which is why, after years of carefully crafting her identity, the libelous newspaper headlines seized Oakley so drastically.

Born Phoebe Ann Moses in Darke County, Ohio, on August 13, 1860, Oakley was not exactly a product of the Wild West. She came from a Quaker family and a childhood marred by poverty and abandonment (her father died when she was 6 and her mother sent Annie to work for an abusive foster family when she could no longer support her). “This is somebody who out of a nightmarish childhood, picks up a gun,” says Scharff.

From the second she began shooting—first to put food on the table and only later as an entertainer—there was no denying Oakley’s knack for the sport. After meeting and marrying Frank Butler, she performed for years in the vaudeville circuit before joining Buffalo Bill’s show in 1885. She quickly became known as a maid of the West, performing stunts like shooting clay pigeons out of the air with a rifle while standing atop a galloping horse.

Of course, to maintain her “ladyhood,” she always wore a skirt—usually one she had sewn herself.

“To present herself as a woman who had developed all the feminine skills that would be expected was very important to her,” says Mary Zeiss Stange, a professor of women’s studies at Skidmore College. “She was aware of the kinds of gender boundaries that she was trespassing.” Along with being a female in a field largely dominated by males, she had become an almost instant celebrity and had acquired wealth, which were essentially unheard of among women of that time.

But her success was predicated upon walking a delicate line between her celebrated talent for shooting and the Victorian social norms that valued ladylike, modest behavior over earning power.

“She had to make a girl that could shoot acceptable to a Victorian public,” says Scharff. “She’s inventing this new identity of the spunky Western girl who’s no threat to men who are good men.”

As a female shooter, Oakley took measures not to be perceived as dangerous; very few (if any) images exist that depict her killing any live animals. It was Oakley’s girlish manner—combined with her talent—that captivated audiences throughout the country and launched her to stardom.

Oakley carefully picked her political causes as part of her public persona. She was a vocal proponent of women earning equal pay as men and of carrying guns to protect themselves, advocating that women conceal weapons in their parasols (pocketbooks were less convenient). Throughout her career, Oakley proudly trained hundreds of women to shoot, and during World War I, she volunteered to train female sharpshooters to serve in the U.S. Army, though Woodrow Wilson, who was president at the time, did not approve the idea.

Nevertheless, Oakley came out against woman suffrage, a stance that continues to perplex scholars today. It remains unclear whether her politics were truly conservative with regards to the female vote or whether Oakley saw that she “wouldn’t do herself any favors in the public relations department” (as Stange puts it) by aligning herself with the woman suffrage movement. Regardless, her politics distanced her from emergent first-wave feminists without making too many enemies on either side of the feminist movement.

Though Oakley was certainly one of the best shooters of the day, she was not leaps and bounds better than several of her contemporaries, including her rival in her last years with Buffalo Bill, the “California Girl” Lillian Smith. A fast-talking cocksure 15-year-old, Smith had outshot some of the premier marksmen of her day, many over twice her age. In contrast to Oakley, Smith was known to wear revealing costumes and emphasize her sexuality. While she was nearly Oakley’s match in skill, Smith never had Oakley’s celebrity. Oakley’s clever manipulations of her own image in favor of her modesty made her appealing to many different groups and for many different reasons.

One winter’s day in 1887, Smith and Oakley, on tour in England, stepped forward to greet Queen Victoria. The two young women of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show stood in stark contrast to each another. Lillian Smith was a proud, round-faced teenage girl with a coarse manner; Oakley, a bit older, with finer features and long, dark hair, had a certain reserved elegance implicit in her posture. The former would soon fade into the annals of history, but Oakley would become the subject of books, musicals, and even a mid-1950s television series. Their performance had left the queen eager to personally congratulate them, but as she faced the two women, the queen addressed only one.

“You are a very clever girl,” the queen famously said as she took Annie Oakley’s hand.

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Jess Righthand is a former editorial intern at Smithsonian . She writes about music, theater, movies and the arts.

• HISTORY & CULTURE

The true story of Annie Oakley, legendary sharpshooter

As a star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, the 19th-century icon inspired TV shows, movies, and musicals. But her fame also has led to conflicting accounts of her life.

Legend has it that Annie Oakley was such a skilled sharpshooter that she singlehandedly foiled train robberies, shot bears and panthers, and killed a wolf that already had her in its grip—or so claimed one 1887 novel based on her life titled The Rifle Queen.

Oakley’s fame as one of the most skilled gunslingers of her lifetime inspired many tall tales. (The wolf story, for example, never happened.) Some of these myths live on today thanks to the 1946 Broadway musical “Annie Get Your Gun,” whose final scene depicts Oakley losing a match intentionally to protect her future husband’s ego—when in reality she won his heart by beating him in a shoot-out.

It’s difficult to separate fact from fiction about Oakley’s life. As the star attraction of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show—a popular 19th-century act known for its romanticized portrayal of frontier life—Oakley showcased her talents on stages across the world for 17 years. She astounded audiences by shooting cigarettes from her husband’s lips, riddling playing cards in mid-air, and—her go-to trick — shooting a target behind her back while spotting it from a mirror.

Oakley’s reputation was largely crafted by her husband Frank Butler and the promoters of the Wild West Show. But some of Oakley’s own accounts of her life, and those of her descendants, still remain. Here’s the true story of the sharpshooter’s life.

For starters, Oakley wasn’t the gunslinger’s real name: Born on August 13, 1860, as Phoebe Ann Moses— which the family sometimes spelled Mozee, Mosey, or Mauzy —she started using the stage name around the time she joined the Wild West Show in 1885.

Instead of the Wild West, Oakley was originally from Darke County, Ohio, and she had a rough start. After her father passed away when she was five years old, Oakley had to help provide for her family . Sue Macy writes in   National Geographic ’s Bull’s-Eye: A Photobiography of Annie Oakley   that Annie helped feed the family by making traps to catch game before taking up her father’s rifle.

Annie would tell the story of her first hunt many times, and even though details like what type of animal she killed changed over the years, she was certain she brought it down with a single shot.

For Hungry Minds

“I don’t know how I acquired the skill,” she once said, according to Macy. “I suppose I was born with it.”

Tragedy struck again when Oakley’s stepfather died in 1870. Struggling to make ends meet, her mother sent some of her children to live with neighbors. A local farmer took Oakley into his home to help care for his children. Despite his promise that she’d have time for school and hunting, however, it quickly turned into indentured servitude .

She managed to escape and ultimately returned home to her mother as a teen. That’s when she started to regularly sell her kills to the local grocer and hotels, earning enough to pay off the mortgage on her mother’s house.

Her mastery of shooting became her career and even led her to meet her husband, fellow sharpshooter Frank E. Butler, in 1875. Oakley was visiting her sister in Cincinnati when she was invited to a shooting match with Butler.

Both Oakley and Butler hit every pigeon released from the trap, until Butler’s final shot fell beyond the boundary line, awarding Oakley the win. Soon after, the two were married and began performing together.

The star of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show

In 1885, Oakley and Butler joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which would launch her to international fame. Oakley earned her spot in the company by hitting every clay pigeon Butler had launched in the air during a shooting practice.

Butler and Oakley traveled all over the U.S. with the Wild West Show company. The show, created in 1883 by Buffalo Bill, or William F. Cody, was an outdoor extravaganza of the fictionalized Wild West, including reenactments of cowboys battling Indians, shooting expositions, and skits showing off roping and horse riding. (Cody would later publicly renounce some of the show’s harmful depictions of Native Americans.)

Oakley quickly became the show’s main attraction since many audience members were stunned by the combination of her sharpshooting skills paired with her petite frame⁠. And she gained international renown in 1887 when the company performed at Queen Victoria ’s Golden Jubilee in London.

Oakley was billed as a headliner of the show, which the Queen and her son, Edward, the Prince of Wales, attended. Tales of Edward inviting the shooter to his box after the show have been corroborated by reports of the encounter , in which the prince described Oakley as a “wonderful little girl.”

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Oakley and Butler soon branched out to give private exhibitions to European royalty before rejoining the Western show in 1889. Oakley even shot a cigarette out of German Prince Wilhelm’s hand—although not his mouth as some legends have it.

The couple finally left the Western show when Oakley was injured in a 1901 train accident. However, she continued to appear at exhibitions until she officially retired at 53.

An all-female regiment of the U.S. Army

Beyond her iconic sharpshooting, Oakley was known for her volunteer and philanthropic work. Bessie Edwards, Oakley’s great grand-niece and cofounder of the Annie Oakley Foundation , writes in the foreword of National Geographic ’s photobiography that Oakley donated time and money to tuberculosis patients, orphans, and young women seeking higher education.

Oakley was also passionate about teaching women how to shoot for sport and protection, and she’s thought to have taught more than 15,000 women to shoot over the years through free classes.  

“I think every woman should learn the use of firearms,” she once wrote, according to Macy. “I would like to see every woman know how to handle [firearms] as naturally as they know how to handle babies.”

In 1898 she sent a letter to President William McKinley before the Spanish American War broke out and volunteered to organize a regiment of 50 American female sharpshooters—even though women were not allowed to serve in the U.S. military at the time. Her offer was denied by the War Department .

When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, Oakley again wrote a letter to the Secretary of War, offering to train a women’s division: “I can guarantee a regiment of women for home protection,” she wrote, “every one of whom can and will shoot if necessary.”

The secretary did not take her up on her offer, but Oakley still helped in the war efforts by giving shooting demonstrations at U.S. Army posts. She even trained her dog, Dave, to sniff out cash donations for the Red Cross, which people wrapped in handkerchiefs and hid for the dog to find—earning him the nickname Dave the Red Cross Dog .

Protecting her reputation from tall tales

Oakley worked furiously to build her reputation—and protect it from the gossip and libel that often accompanied her fame.

In 1890, newspapers worldwide reprinted a French report that she had died in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Oakley telegrammed reassurances from England, where she was on vacation and very much alive, and demanded that newspapers retract the report. Evidently, Macy writes, the paper had misspelled the name of the actual deceased, a singer named Annie Oatley.

Then, in 1903, two Chicago newspapers reported that Oakley was locked up in a local jail after pleading guilty to stealing a man’s pants to get money for drugs. The story was picked up nationwide. To set the record straight, Oakley wrote to the newspapers saying she had not been in Chicago for months. Most printed retractions when an investigation revealed that an actress with the stage name Any Oakley was the true culprit—but that wasn’t enough for Oakley.

She filed libel lawsuits against 55 newspapers and spent much of the next seven years testifying in court. According to Macy, she won or settled 54 of the cases and came away with more than a quarter of a million dollars.

Oakley was soon considering other career moves, like starring in movies or writing a memoir, but her health declined rapidly after a car accident in 1922 left her with a permanent leg injury. In 1926, she was diagnosed with a blood disorder and died at 66 years old in Greenville, Ohio. Her husband, who had been visiting North Carolina for the winter, died 18 days later.

In spite of—or perhaps due to—the conflicting accounts of her life, Oakley’s reputation has endured through the years. Her tenacity and determination have become an inspiration for many, with her likeness appearing in TV shows, movies, and musicals.

“Aim for the high mark and you will hit it,” she’s reported to have said. “No, not the first time, not the second time, and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you'll hit the bulls-eye of success.”

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Annie Oakley Perfumery Studio & Gift Shop

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Annie Oakley, International Star and Straight-Shooting Suffragist

She was an Ohio-born lady who could shoot like the dickens. She was the first white woman hired by a Wild West outfit to fill a traditionally male role. She was, hands down, the finest woman sharpshooting entertainer of all time. And, at one time, she may have been the most famous woman in the American West or the American East. She was, of course, Annie Oakley — her name nearly as well recognized to this day as that of the bigger-than-life figure who hired her, Buffalo Bill.

Annie, born Phoebe Ann Moses in Ohio’s Darke County on August 13, 1860, got her gun at an early age but didn’t shoot her way to everlasting fame until after William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody put her on the payroll in 1885. In the process, the little woman (5 feet tall, about 110 pounds) gave Cody’s Wild West a shot in the arm. As a star with the stature, ability and uniqueness of Buffalo Bill himself, Annie Oakley had a platform to promote her egalitarian views about women. She believed that women needed to learn to be proficient with firearms to defend themselves and that they could even help fight for their country. During World War I, she offered to recruit and train a regiment of women sharpshooters. If nothing else, Annie Oakley helped expand the career options of American women.

Annie rose to stardom from humble roots. In the mid-1860s her father, Jacob, died, and her mother, Susan, had a devil of a time trying to make ends meet with seven children age 15 or younger on her hands. Annie tried to help by hunting and trapping in the Darke County woods. By age 10, Annie had been sent off to live at the county poor farm, known as the Infirmary, and during her early teens she alternated between living there and with her mother and stepfather. Her life took a turn for the better when she met Irishman Frank (‘Jimmie’) Butler of the Butler and Baughman shooting act.

According to legend, Butler was trying to drum up business in 1875 by accepting challenges from local marksmen, and on Thanksgiving Day in Greenville, Ohio, he took on young Annie Moses in a shooting match. ‘I almost dropped dead when a slim girl in a short dress stepped out to the mark with me,’ Frank Butler later said. ‘I was a beaten man the moment she appeared.’ Frank lost, 23 to 21. Later, whenever he said that he had purposely thrown the match, Annie would just flutter her eyes and smile. In any case, Frank was impressed enough by Annie to invite her to see his act in Cincinnati. She accepted. As part of his act, Butler and his big white French poodle, George, performed a William Tell bit. As usual, Frank shot the apple off George’s head and George retrieved the fruit, but the dog then brought it to Annie instead of to the shooter. A courtship ensued — between Annie and Frank, that is — and the couple was married within the year…or so the legend has it.

Shirl Kasper, author of the 1992 biography Annie Oakley, points out that the shooting match couldn’t have occurred in 1875, because Frank Butler’s shooting career probably didn’t even start until 1876. There are no contemporary newspaper accounts of the match. More likely, it occurred in 1881, which is what Butler said several times much later. When the couple actually wed is also uncertain. They told everyone that they were married about a year after they met, and their only known marriage certificate says they tied the knot on June 20, 1882, in Windsor, Canada, when Annie was 21.

Annie joined Frank’s stage act, according to her own account, only after Frank’s shooting partner, John Graham, became ill in May 1882. She filled in admirably and became an instant hit. She chose ‘Oakley’ as her stage name for some unknown reason and began to tour with Frank. To the experienced showman’s credit, he immediately realized that his wife was a star. He put his own career on a backburner so that he could manage her career, saying, ‘She outclassed me.’

In those early days of her stage career, Annie Oakley played with Frank Butler at small theaters, skating rinks and circuses. While working for the Sells Brothers Circus in New Orleans in 1884, they met Buffalo Bill Cody, but he didn’t hire her until after she and her manager-husband had come to Louisville, Ky., early in 1885 for a three-day tryout. After an agreement was struck, Buffalo Bill brought her to the mess tent to introduce her to the members of his Wild West, which had been inaugurated in 1883. ‘This little missie here is Miss Annie Oakley,’ Buffalo Bill said. ‘She is to be the only white woman with our exhibition. And I want you boys to welcome and protect her.’ They didn’t need to — ‘Li’l Missie,’ as Cody usually called her, had pretty much fended for herself from childhood.

Annie Oakley and Frank Butler toured with the Wild West for some 16 seasons, and the only contract they had with Cody was verbal. Annie said that Cody, whom she called ‘the Colonel,’ was the kindest-hearted, most loyal man she had ever met, and also the softest touch. She noted that Cody kept a big pitcher of lemonade by his tent so that he could serve refreshments to visiting youngsters. The Oakley act was spectacular. Cody generally used Li’l Missie early in his entertainment extravaganza so that she could warm the audience up to the sound of gunfire. Dexter Fellows, a sometimes press agent for the Wild West, wrote in his autobiographical book This Way to the Big Show that Annie ‘was a consummate actress, with a personality that made itself felt as soon as she entered the arena.’ During her entrance, Annie waved and blew kisses to the audience. She was an ambidextrous shot who fired rapidly and with unerring accuracy. On the rare occasions when she missed a shot, she immediately fired again. On occasion, she intentionally missed and then pretended to become petulant, stamping her feet in frustration and sometimes throwing her hat down and walking around it to change her luck. Then when she did hit the mark, the audience would roar louder than ever.

Frank Butler also got into the act, releasing clay pigeons for his wife. She would jump over her gun table and shoot the clay bird before it hit the ground. Often she shot cigarettes out of her husband’s mouth, and once she even shot a cigarette out of Kaiser Wilhelm II’s mouth. Charlatan shooters preferred to shoot ashes from cigars (with the help of a wire embedded in the cigar and twisted by the assistant’s tongue at the proper moment), so Annie insisted on shooting only whole cigarettes. Her act often included hitting targets while riding a bicycle with no hands. Although she could ride a horse in fine style, she left the shooting of glass balls from horseback to Buffalo Bill. Annie concluded her act with a funny jig and would kick up her heels just before she left the arena. Once when a newspaper in England wondered how fast and accurate she was, she gave a special demonstration. Frank stood on a chair facing his wife’s back. At Annie’s command, he dropped a tin plate. Annie turned, fired and hit it square, all within about half a second.

Annie Oakley had a theatrical flair and the quickness and agility of an athlete. But none of it would have meant too much had she not been such a top hand with all kinds of firearms. She practiced constantly and did not rely on trickery; she was no sham shooting star. Among her favorite shotguns were a Lancaster and a Francotte, her favorite rifles included a Winchester and a Marlin, and she used Colts and Smith & Wesson handguns equally well. ‘Guns, rifles and pistols are of many styles,’ she once said, ‘and to declare that any one make is superior to all others would show a very narrow mind and limited knowledge of firearms….Nobody should trust their lives behind a cheap gun.’

The famous Sioux (Lakota) spiritual leader and medicine man Sitting Bull toured with the Wild West during the 1885 season. Annie had actually met him the previous year in a St. Paul, Minn., theater, when Sitting Bull, then a resident of the Standing Rock Reservation in Dakota Territory, watched her fire a rifle to snuff out a burning candle. Apparently, Sitting Bull was so impressed that afterward he asked to see the little white woman. Annie then gave Sitting Bull a picture of herself, while he gave her moccasins he had worn at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, as well as the nickname Watanya Cicilla (‘Little Sure Shot’). They were happily reunited the next year as employees of Cody’s Wild West. Whenever Sitting Bull got peevish that season, Cody would send for Little Sure Shot, who would talk to the Lakota leader for a while and then do her jig before leaving his quarters. That inevitably would make Sitting Bull laugh and would lift his spirits. But her presence was not enough to make him want to continue with the show another season.

In the spring of 1886, while the Wild West performed in Washington, D.C., en route to an extended summer stay at Erastina, on Staten Island, an insect lodged itself deep inside Annie Oakley’s ear. By June, she had an ear infection, but, against doctor’s orders, she still rode in the 17-mile opening-day parade in New York City. Near the end of it, she collapsed, and doctors determined that the area behind her eardrum needed to be lanced to drain its poison. The bedridden Li’l Missie missed four performances at Erastina (probably the only four she missed during her show career) before she hobbled into the arena on the fifth day to shoot again. She had plenty of grit for sure, but part of Annie Oakley’s motivation for getting back in action was the fact that Cody had hired a younger female shooter, Lillian Smith, for the 1886 season. At the time, Annie may have been concerned about her job security. But there was room for both of them, and the Wild West continued to be a big hit when it moved into Madison Square Garden that winter.

In 1887, the two women sharpshooters and the rest of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West sailed to London as part of the U.S. delegation to Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. That May 5, Prince Albert Edward delighted in a special performance by the company and afterward wanted to meet the cast members. Annie Oakley had heard that women would flirt with the prince in front of his wife. When the prince was introduced to Annie and extended his hand, Annie passed it by and shook the princess’ hand first. She told the prince, ‘You’ll have to forgive me, I’m an American, and in America, women come first.’

On May 11, it was Queen Victoria’s turn to have a command performance. It was held at the exhibition grounds after her courtiers convinced her that they couldn’t fit Cody’s outfit into Windsor Castle. When the American flag entered the arena, Queen Victoria stood up and bowed deeply, and Cody’s company roared its approval. For the first time in history, an English monarch had saluted the Star-Spangled Banner. After Lillian Smith and Annie Oakley had curtsied and walked up to her, the queen told Annie, ‘You are a very clever little girl.’ L’il Missie had become an international star. At least one newspaper said that her marksmanship was better than that of Buffalo Bill.

Annie Oakley’s rising fame may have gone to her head, or to the head of her husband, and a rift developed between them and Cody. The couple left the Wild West. Annie did not explain the break from Cody, but she did say that the reasons she left were ‘too long to tell.’ She and Frank toured with vaudeville impresario Tony Pastor’s show in the spring of 1888. That summer, they hooked up with struggling Pawnee Bill (real name Gordon W. Lillie), a genuine frontiersman who had turned to showmanship, just like Buffalo Bill. Even though Pawnee Bill’s wife, May Lillie, was a sharpshooter with Pawnee Bill’s Wild West, Annie Oakley received top billing. Annie left the new show after a month to rejoin Pastor on a fall tour, and Pawnee Bill went broke less than three months later. While Annie was touring with Pastor, Frank Butler also arranged frequent shooting matches and exhibitions for his wife. In one match for $50 she broke all 50 clay birds, and in another, featuring 50 live pigeons, she defeated Miles Johnson, champion of New Jersey.

On Christmas Eve 1888, Annie Oakley made her debut as an actress in the Western melodrama Deadwood Dick. The play was not a success, and by early February 1889 the theater company had folded. One of the Deadwood Dick managers, though, was John Burke (who was a press agent for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West), and he was probably the one who convinced Frank Butler and Annie Oakley to rejoin Buffalo Bill for a spring run in Paris. That same year, Lillian Smith left the show, and Annie had no competition from any other female sharpshooter in France.

At first, the French apparently thought Buffalo Bill’s whole spectacle, including the shooting, was a fake, but when they saw Annie Oakley perform, they became convinced that she was the real thing. Nate Salsbury, Cody’s business partner, wrote that Annie Oakley saved the show. According to the scrapbooks at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyo., the French, like the rest of the world, idolized Little Sure Shot. The French papers also played up Cody’s reputation as a womanizer.

The Paris show ran until the fall of 1889, and then the Wild West ventured on an extended European tour. The English and Italians were most impressed by the horseback riding, but the Germans, especially Prussian military men, took a greater interest in the show’s logistics. The Germans were amazed by the Wild West’s efficient rail movement and the fact that Cody fed his crew three hot meals a day regardless of travel. After World War I started, Annie Oakley heard a rumor that the Germans modeled the movement of the German regiment after the movement of Buffalo Bill’s large company. When reporters reminded Li’l Missie that she had shot a cigarette out of the mouth of the kaiser (Wilhelm II) during the 1890-91 tour, she remarked that she wished that she had missed that particular shot. In Strassburg, Germany, in 1890, Cody sneaked into Annie Oakley’s tent and wrote in her autograph book: ‘To the loveliest and truest little woman, both in heart and aim, in all the world. Sworn by and before myself. W.F. Cody, Buffalo Bill.’

When Annie Oakley returned to the United States in October 1892, she was a celebrity who reportedly made more money than any other of Cody’s Wild West employees. In the fall of 1894, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Oakley and a handful of Indians performed in front of Thomas Edison’s moving-picture machine at the inventor’s laboratory near Orange Mountain in New Jersey. Edison was delighted that his machine could reproduce gun smoke and the shattering of glass balls. The public could go to kinetoscope parlors and, for a nickel, view these early Edison films in peep-show machines. Now, people didn’t have to see Annie Oakley live to know her. She had become the first ‘cowgirl’ in motion pictures.

Meanwhile the show went on, and it became more of a road show than ever. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West played in more than 130 towns in both 1895 and 1896. In 1897, the Wild West played in Canada for the first time since Sitting Bull was a headliner in 1885. Annie admitted in 1899 that she had begun to at least think about retirement. The railroad travel was endless, and it had its dangers. Train accidents were not uncommon.

One notable wreck occurred at 3 a.m. on October 29, 1901, near Lindwood, N.C., while the company was headed to Danville, Va., for its last performance of the season. When the first section passed the switching station, the switcher thought that it was the whole outfit, so he threw the switch. The second section ran into an oncoming train. The wooden cars became so many piles of kindling as people and animals cried out in pain and steam hissed. Legend says that Annie Oakley, now 41, was found pinned beneath the rubble and it took several hours before she could be extracted. As Li’l Missie was carried by stretcher past some wounded horses that had to be shot, she supposedly remarked that she felt sorry for them. Just 17 hours after the wreck, according to legend, her brown hair turned totally white because of the horror of the accident.

Biographer Shirl Kasper, however, argues that Annie was not badly hurt in the wreck (the Charlotte Observer reported that nobody from the Wild West was injured) and that while Annie’s hair did turn white rather fast, it wasn’t because of the train wreck. Two newspaper articles in Annie’s scrapbooks at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center say that her hair turned white after she sat too long in a hot bath at a health resort later that year. In any case, says Kasper, it was her white hair, not any bodily injuries, that convinced Annie Oakley to immediately leave Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.

After her retirement from the Wild West, Annie Oakley tried her hand at acting again, appearing as the lead in a play called The Western Girl, which opened in New Jersey in November 1902. She looked much as she had while shooting in the Wild West, except now she wore a brown wig to hide her white hair. She also would teach shooting at exclusive clubs. Meanwhile, her husband worked for the Union Metallic Cartridge Company, promoting its products to the growing number of trapshooters. In the spring of 1910, Frank and Annie attended a Wild West show at Madison Square Garden known as the ‘Two Bills Show,’ because Buffalo Bill’s outfit had merged with Pawnee Bill’s outfit. Cody apparently asked Annie to rejoin the show, but she and Frank turned the old showman down. Instead, the following year, they joined up with Vernon C. Seavers’ Young Buffalo Wild West, and Little Sure Shot continued to shoot for that outfit until retiring for good in 1913. Annie and Frank continued to be friends with Cody, though, and when Buffalo Bill died on January 10, 1917, she wrote a glowing eulogy.

After giving her last performance with Young Buffalo Wild West on October 4, 1913, Annie and Frank retired to a new home in Cambridge, Md., and also spent a lot of their time at resorts in Pinehurst, N.C., and Leesburg, Fla. Hunting and shooting remained a big part of their lives. They had no children. In the summer of 1922, when she was about to turn 62, Annie Oakley performed at a benefit show on Long Island (a clip of her performance that day can be seen at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center). The New York Herald hinted that she might be making a comeback in show biz and could appear in the movies soon. It never happened. That November, she fractured her hip and an ankle in a car accident in Florida. The steel leg brace she was forced to wear did not, however, keep her from resuming her shooting and hunting.

Annie Oakley was back home in Darke County, Ohio, when she died on November 3, 1926. She had never fully recovered from the car accident. The doctor wrote ‘pernicious anemia’ as her cause of death. Frank Butler reportedly stopped eating or caring. Less than three weeks later, on November 21, he seemed to fulfill his wish by joining his beloved wife in death.

Annie Oakley had not been born in the West, and she had not lived there. But for many years she had certainly looked like a cowgirl, and she had ridden a horse and shot better than most any Westerner, of either sex, while performing in Wild West shows. To call her, then, a ‘Western legend’ does not miss the mark…even if she was too good, and too good a shot, to shoot anyone.

This article was written by Eric V. Sorg and originally appeared in the February 2001 issue of  Wild West .

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INTRODUCING ANNIE OAKLEY’S NEW ALBUM:

Second day of spring, releasing april 30th in the us.

RELEASING MAY 28th IN THE UK/EU

Songs to feel to

Annie Oakley’s upcoming album, Second Day of Spring , chronicles the sisters’ transition from youth to young womanhood, from grief to happiness, recovery to self discovery – narrating the first chapter of the rest of their lives.

Songs to heal to

Second Day of Spring comes amidst an isolating pandemic, political unrest, and emotional turmoil across the world. It offers songs of healing, growth, and transformation – needed now more than ever.

Identical twin sisters Jo and Sophia Babb bring wise, emotive lyrics and immaculate, perfectly-matched vocal harmonies to Annie Oakley .

Writing about themes of new growth and the natural beauty around them, their music has received warm reception across the UK, Europe, and the US.

Their new album, Second Day of Spring, will be released internationally in Spring 2021.

“Folk-Americana language that eludes most others . . . their pristine but pillow-soft voices folding into immaculate harmonies the envy of even the most vetted musical collaborators out there.”

Joshua Boydston, The Norman Transcript

Join the Annie Oakley mailing list.

Get exclusive access to new releases, promotions, & merch sales.

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Annie Oakley Festival

  July 26-28, 2024 • Darke County Fairgrounds • Greenville, Ohio

FRIDAY, JULY 26

SATURDAY, JULY 27

SUNDAY, JULY 28

A family-friendly festival featuring live entertainment including western arts, cowboy mounted shooting, musical performances and much more.

As always, we also have a variety of food trucks and craft vendors.

It's all in honor of Darke County's most famous daughter!

Welcome to the 2024 Annie Oakley Festival

The Annie Oakley Committee members are so excited about having our 2024 Annie Oakley Festival.  We are looking forward to welcoming everyone to the festival this year.  We have a lot of activities planned, and hope that you will join us for this wonderful festival, and honor our very own Miss Annie Oakley.

Join us as we celebrate Darke County's Famous Daughter

~JoEllen Melling

President of the Annie Oakley Festival Committee ​

A marksmanship contest open to young ladies ages 12-19.  The winner will receive a cash prize and become the face of the festival until the next year!

Each contestant will shoot the same BB gun, provided by the Festival Committee, starting from a distance of 25 feet and increasing by 5 feet each round.

To enter, please print a copy of the entry form and send it to us.  Applications must be received no later than 6 p.m. on July 7, 2023.

For the rules, please visit the Contest Pa ge .

Miss Annie Oakley

The Annie Oakley Center Foundation is pleased to announce its “Annie’s Memorial Shoot” to be held on Friday, July 28 in conjunction with this year’s Annie Oakley Festival. “Classic Annie” and “Classic Frank” shooting competitions are open to women and men who are 19 years or older. Each participant will have the opportunity to shoot like Annie Oakley or her marksman husband, Frank Butler. Competitors will be provided with a BB gun, BBs, target balloons, and practice time. First prize winners receive $50 and second prize is $25. More Information

Annie's Memorial Shoot

A costume contest open to children ages 3-5. 

Contestants will be in costumes depicting Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill.  Prizes will be awarded for Best Costume and Most Photogenic.

To enter, please print a copy of the entry form and send it to us.  Applications must be received no later than July 22, 2024 - *2024 Application Form Coming Soon!

Little Miss & Mister

Bring your classic car, truck, or other vehicle for all to see!

Entry fee is $10, and the contest is open to the general public.  Enter in person the day of the show.

For more info, please visit the Contest Page .

More information coming soon!

Kiddie Tractor Pull

Dog races open all small dogs.  Heats will be organized as needed depending on how many dogs are entered.

There's also a costume contest and an owner/pet look-alike contest; these are open to all breeds!

For the rules and entry form, please visit the Contest Page .

Small Dog Races

• Where is Annie buried? Annie Oakley and Frank Butler are buried near Brock, Ohio, off Greenville-Saint Mary's Road between State Route 127 and OH-185. Here is a map of the location: Grave Site ***If you're at the Festival, our free, air-conditioned Historical Bus Tour leaves from the Festival grounds several times each day and stops at this location; it's a great way to get there and learn about other sites of interest in the area!
• Can we camp nearby? Yes! The Fairgrounds has spaces and hookups for your RV or trailer. All camping is handled by the Annie Oakley Committee, Call 937-417-1365
• Where is the Festival held? We are at the Darke County Fairgrounds in Greenville, Ohio. Enter through Gate 5 and parking will be on your right. (Fairgrounds may use overflow parking as needed.)
• Are you affiliated with the Garst Museum? No, we are not. However, we do recommend you visit them if you are interested in Annie Oakley or the history of Darke County!
• Where is the Gathering at Garst? The Gathering is held at the Garst Museum. Please follow this link for a map and directions: Garst Museum

COME AND HELP US CELEBRATE OUR 60th YEAR FOR THE ANNIE OAKLEY FESTIVAL Come see the many vendors and concessionaires .  Bring your blanket and chairs, or sit on the grass and watch the shows and competitions, while spending time with family at the Annie Oakley Festival, located at the Darke County Fairgrounds, Sweitzer St, Greenville, OH 45331

Additional events and activities will be listed updated as they become more definite. Please check back often for updates Times for the activities listed above may be adjusted if necessary.

2024 Schedule Coming Soon!

The 2024 Annie Oakley Festival will be held on July 26, 27 and 28th, at the south end of the Darke County Fairgrounds.

Use Fairgrounds Gate 5, off Fort Jefferson Avenue, and you'll be directed to the parking area.

TOP SPONSORS

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Annie Oakley

(1860-1926)

Who Was Annie Oakley?

Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses (or as some sources say, Mosey) on August 13, 1860, in Darke County, Ohio. She is remembered as one of the leading women of the American West.

Both Moses' father and her stepfather died when she was a child, and she went to live at the Darke County Infirmary, where she received schooling and sewing instruction while helping in the care of orphaned children. She returned to living with her mother and her second stepfather in her early teens, when she was able to help the family by hunting game for a grocery store. She earned so much from her skills that by the time she was 15, Moses was able to pay off the mortgage on her mother's home.

A Wild West Star

After beating him in a 1875 Thanksgiving shooting competition, the following year, Moses married Frank E. Butler, a top shooter and vaudeville performer. The two embarked on a union that would last more than half a century. They began working together professionally in 1882, after Butler's male partner fell ill and Moses took his place. She took on the stage name of Oakley, believed to be taken from a Cincinnati locale.

Oakley met Native American leader Sitting Bull in 1884, and he was so impressed with her manner and abilities that he "adopted" her and bestowed upon her the additional name "Little Sure Shot." Oakley and Butler then joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in 1885. The couple toured with the show for more than a decade and a half, with Oakley receiving the spotlight and top billing while Butler worked as her manager, assisting Oakley with her stunning displays of marksmanship.

Audiences were wowed. She could shoot off the end of a cigarette held in her husband's lips, hit the thin edge of a playing card from 30 paces and shoot distant targets while looking into a mirror. She would also shoot holes through cards thrown into the air before they landed, inspiring the practice of punching holes in a free event ticket being referred to as an "Annie Oakley." Oakley even entertained such royals as Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm II — and shot a cigarette out of the kaiser's mouth.

Later Career and Death

After Oakley and Butler were in a railroad accident in 1901, she was partially paralyzed for a time, yet she recovered and continued to perform. She did stage work in the 1903 melodrama The Western Girl and joined the Young Buffalo Show in 1911. Oakley and Butler retired in 1913, settling in Cambridge, Maryland, and adopting a dog, Dave, who would become part of their later shows.

Oakley was a top earner for the Wild West Show and via her additional exhibition work, sharing money with her extended family and giving donations to charities for orphans. During World War I, Oakley volunteered to organize a regiment of female sharpshooters, but her petition was ignored, so, instead, she helped to raise money for the Red Cross with exhibition work at Army camps.

During her retirement, Oakley pursued such hobbies as hunting and fishing, and taught marksmanship to other women. In the early 1920s, Oakley and Butler were involved a car accident in which they were both severely hurt, but she did manage to perform again for a time in 1924.

Oakley died on November 3, 1926, in Greenville, Ohio. The news of her death saddened the nation and brought forth a wave of tributes. Butler died on November 21, 1926.

Legacy and Media Depictions

Part of Oakley's lasting legacy is the Irving Berlin musical Annie Get Your Gun (1946), based on her life story, with the initial run starring Ethel Merman and later Broadway incarnations starring Reba McEntire and Bernadette Peters. Other media treatments of the markswoman's life have appeared as well, including the 1935 film Annie Oakley (which is noted for being historically inaccurate), the 1950 film adaptation of Annie Get Your Gun, starring Betty Hutton, and a variety of books geared toward both children and adults.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Annie Oakley
• Birth Year: 1860
• Birth date: August 13, 1860
• Birth State: Ohio
• Birth City: Darke County
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Annie Oakley was a renowned markswoman and star who worked for years with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.
• Theater and Dance
• Astrological Sign: Leo
• Death Year: 1926
• Death date: November 3, 1926
• Death State: Ohio
• Death City: Greenville
• Death Country: United States

We strive for accuracy and fairness.If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Annie Oakley Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/history-culture/annie-oakley
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: July 28, 2020
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, nor the second and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you'll hit the Bull's Eye of Success.
• I was eight years old when I made my first shot, and I still consider it one of the best shots I ever made.
• I've made a good deal of money in my time, but I never believe in wasting a dollar of it.

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Tiktok creators sue to block law forcing divestment or ban: ‘part of american life’.

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A group of TikTok creators said Tuesday they filed suit in US federal court seeking to block a law signed by President Biden that would  force the divestiture of the short video app used by 170 million Americans or ban it, saying it has had “a profound effect on American life.”

The TikTok users suing include a Texas Marine Corps veteran who sells his ranch products, a Tennessee woman selling cookies and discussing parenting, a North Dakota college coach who makes sports commentary videos and a recent college graduate in North Carolina who advocates for the rights of sexual-assault survivors.

“Although they come from different places, professions, walks of life, and political persuasions, they are united in their view that TikTok provides them a unique and irreplaceable means to express themselves and form community,” said the lawsuit.

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, a law firm representing the creators, provided a copy of the lawsuit to Reuters it said had been filed in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The White House declined comment. A Justice Department spokesperson said the TikTok law “addresses critical national security concerns in a manner that is consistent with the First Amendment and other constitutional limitations. We look forward to defending the legislation in court.”

The suit, which seeks injunctive relief, says the law threatens free speech and “promises to shutter a discrete medium of communication that has become part of American life.”

Last week, TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance filed  a similar lawsuit , arguing that the law violates the US Constitution on a number of grounds including running afoul of First Amendment free speech protections.

TikTok creators filed a similar suit in 2020 to block a prior attempt to block the app under then President Donald Trump, and also sued last year in Montana asking a court to block a state ban. In both instances, courts blocked the bans.

The law, signed by Biden on April 24, gives ByteDance until Jan. 19 to sell TikTok or face a ban. The White House has said it wants to see Chinese-based ownership ended on national security grounds but not a ban on TikTok.

The law prohibits app stores like Apple, and Alphabet’s Google, from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance divests TikTok.

The suit says to the extent the government may claim the law is needed to protect Americans’ data, “it has tried that strategy before and lost.” The suit says “the concerns are speculative, and even if they were not, they could be addressed with legislation much more narrowly tailored to any purported concern.”

The TikTok lawsuit said last week the divestiture “is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally … There is no question: the Act (law) will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025.”

Driven by worries among US lawmakers that China could access data on Americans or spy on them with the app, the measure was passed overwhelmingly in Congress just weeks after being introduced.

The four-year battle over TikTok is a significant front in the ongoing conflict over the internet and technology between the United States and China. In April, Apple said China had ordered it to remove Meta Platform’s WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China over Chinese national security concerns.

Biden could extend the Jan. 19 deadline by three months if he determines ByteDance is making progress.

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