Throughout its long history, the Williamson County Fair has featured many famous celebrities and entertainers. None was more well-known or beloved than Annie Oakley, the legendary sharpshooter. “Little Miss Sure Shot” once put on a demonstration of her uncanny marksmanship right here in Marion. As a matter of fact, it is believed that this appearance was Annie’s last with a traveling show, ending a spectacular career which had begun in 1884 with the world famous “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.”
Phoebe Ann Moses (or Mozee, or Mauzy) was born August 13, 1860. At that time her family lived in an old log cabin less than 2 miles northwest of Woodland, now Willowdell, in Darke County, Ohio. She was the fifth of seven children of Jacob and Susan Moses, Quaker farmers who were originally from Pennsylvania. Her first years on the family farm were happy for the young girl. But in 1866 her father died tragically after being trapped outside by a blizzard. The family lost the farm and was forced to split up. Annie was first placed in an orphanage for two years, then sent to work for another family as a live-in farm helper. She hated it. She was abused and miserable and, after several years, managed to run away.
By an almost miraculous stroke of luck, Annie was able to find her mother again. She had re-married, been widowed again, and was living with her third husband. Back in her mother’s home, twelve-year old Annie found her father’s muzzle-loading percussion smoothbore, and learned how to load and shoot it. The youngster began hunting to provide meat for the struggling family. She was so good at it that she was able to supplement the family’s income by selling some of the wild game she had shot. Her ducks, geese and rabbits were purchased for the tables of the finest hotels in Dayton and Cincinnati. By age 14, she was able to pay off the mortgage on her step-father’s farm with her market-hunting money.
In a time when a man’s marksmanship was an important part of his identity, Annie’s reputation as a sharpshooter spread rapidly. In 1875, a well-known exhibition shooter, Irish-born Frank Butler, came to Cincinnati. He bet $100 that he could out-shoot any of the local crack shots. A hotel owner who was one of Annie’s customers took that bet and summoned Annie. Butler was amazed when a slim 15 year old girl stepped up to the firing line and beat him resoundingly. He was so impressed that he began courting his opponent, and in June, 1876, Phoebe Ann Moses became Mrs. Frank Butler.
Annie had become a most attractive woman. She stood five feet tall and weighed 100 pounds. Blessed with a great figure, chestnut hair and blue eyes, she wore knee-length skirts and leather leggings well before such attire was considered common or acceptable. With a cowboy hat on her head and a rifle in her hand, she made quite an impression on everyone who saw her.
The Butlers began touring the United States as “Frank and Annie.” She started using the last name “Oakley” professionally. Legend says she took it from the name of a Cincinnati suburb. Frank improved her stage performance by teaching her some trick shots. She would run into the arena on foot, grab up a rifle and begin shattering glass balls which he tossed into the air. Then she would leap onto the back of a horse and ride around the ring hitting targets that had been mounted on stands. She would shoot out the flames of lighted candles set on a revolving wheel. Her most famous trick was to place a rifle on her shoulder and use a shiny knife blade as a mirror to hit a target behind her.
Frank would throw playing cards into the air and Annie would shoot holes into the spots on the faces of the cards. She would collect and autograph the cards and give them to people in the audience as free passes to her next show. In show business jargon forever after, free tickets became known as “Annie Oakleys.”
The Butlers joined the Four-Paw and Sells Brothers circus in 1880. In St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1882, they met the great Sioux war chief Sitting Bull. He and Annie developed a life-long friendship. Annie helped him learn to read and write, and he adopted her into the Sioux tribe, referring to her as “My Daughter, Little Sure Shot.”
In 1885 they joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous “Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders” and traveled with that show for 17 years. Frank gave up performing and became her manager. Annie quickly became the star of the whole show. At one time she was earning $1000 a week, an enormous sum for those days. The show traveled the world, giving stunning performances before huge crowds wherever it went.
She appeared before all the crowned heads of Europe and won the admiration of millions. Once, she shot the ashes off the end of a cigarette which Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany held in his mouth. Later, during World War I, Annie would joke that if her aim had been a little bit poorer that day she could have prevented the whole war.
On October 29, 1901, two railroad trains, one carrying Buffalo Bill’s show, collided near Linwood, North Carolina. Several carloads of horses and animals of the show were killed or injured and had to he put down. Most reports have it that Annie was severely injured in that wreck, but another story suggests that after the wreck, Frank and Annie went to Hot Springs, Arkansas, for a winter vacation. And while there, Annie was negligently left in the fiercely hot mineral water for 40 minutes by a careless attendant. She was removed from the baths unconscious and badly blistered, her hair had turned white and her skin was forever blemished from this injury. Doctors feared for her life for a period of time. With typical Annie Oakley fortitude, she managed to live through this terrible assault on her small body. But since this was during the height of the prudish Victorian era and since the tragedy had taken place in a bathhouse where Annie had been scantily clad, they chose to keep the whole matter secret from the public. In January, 1902, Annie Oakley announced her retirement.
In 1903 she came out of retirement to appear in a stage play, “The Western Girl,” which had been written especially for her. It was about that time that the Hearst papers wrote a series of scandalous articles accusing Annie of being on drugs and bankrupt and doing time in prison for theft. It turned out that the papers were erroneously reporting on an imposter who had stolen Annie’s identity and had committed those crimes using her good name. Annie and Frank sued more than 55 newspapers and spent over 5 years litigating this libel. Eventually she won or settled all but one of the lawsuits in her favor. Her honor was vindicated.
During the years from 1904 to 1913 Annie and Frank traveled with various shows and exhibitions, including taking part in the “Young Buffalo Wild West” Show. It was during her tenure with this last venture that she performed at the Williamson County Fair Grounds in Marion.
On the bright Saturday morning of October 4, 1913, Annie Oakley came to Marion. The townspeople got out of their beds before dawn to go down to the railroad tracks and watch the mighty show come to town. It was to be an appearance of the united “Young Buffalo Wild West, Vernon C. Seaver’s Hippodrome, and Col. Cummins’ Far East” traveling extravaganza.
The circus train arrived at Marion’s siding at 5 A.M. and the beehive of activity began. The unloading of the railcars laminated the crowds with its military precision. It was reported in the local paper that by 10 A.M. thousands of onlookers had lined the streets as the Grand Parade started its triumphal march to the Fair Grounds. There were cowboys and Indians, gauchos and Cossacks, desert Arabs and Chinese acrobats. There were wild animals from all around the globe. Bands played and the elephants plodded around the Square as the colorfully costumed circus performers waved to the crowd.
At the Fair Grounds, the locals watched in awe as the tents rose and a small city now stood where a vacant field had been. The circus commissary fed the hundreds of hungry workers and animals their noon meal, and then it was “Show Time!”
The main tent filled with excited children of all ages hoping to see sights that most rural Americans had never beheld before. 74 riders rode around the arena in “The Massing of the Colors,” carrying every national flag, representing all of the people of the world. Riders rode, wranglers wrangled, and Indians whooped. Colorado Cotton, billed as “the world’s greatest lasso thrower,” threw a loop around an entire group of performers and playfully dragged them out of the ring.
Annie Oakley, as usual, was the star of the show, demonstrating her incomparable skill with the rifle, pistol and shotgun. The audience cheered as she performed seemingly miraculous shots. It was easy to see why this petite charmer had captivated audiences around the world. When the evening’s performance closed that night, it is said that this had been Annie Oakley’s final performance in a Wild West show. After 28 years, an era in American show business had passed.
In 1921 the traveling Butlers were involved in a car crash which broke Annie’s hip and ankle. As a result, she would wear a leg brace for the rest of her life. The last known time she shot in public was in 1923 during the Philadelphia Phillies training camp in Leesburg, North Carolina.
The story is that the baseball players stopped their workouts and watched in awe as she showed them feats of marksmanship the likes of which they had never seen before. She was 63 years old. In 1924 the Butlers moved back to Ohio and lived in Greenville, not far from Annie’s childhood home. On November 3, 1926, Annie Oakley died of pernicious anemia at the age of 66. Frank was so distraught over her death that he died 18 days later. They were buried side by side in the Brock Cemetery nearby. They had been married for 50 years.
Many years later, her story was retold in the Broadway musical and motion picture, “Annie Get Your Gun.” Ethel Merman played Annie for 1,147 performances on the stage, starting in 1946, and Betty Hutton was the diminutive sharpshooter in the 1950 movie. An early television series called “Annie Oakley” ran from 1954 through 1956 starring Gail Davis as the title character of some fictional western adventures.
For fifty years the real Annie Oakley won awards and prizes from all over the world. Her collection of medals, trophies and presentation firearms is said to be the largest of any entertainer ever. Portions of this collection can be seen in various museums, including the Garst Museum in Greenville, Ohio; the Nutley, New Jersey, Historical Society; and the Dorchester County Library in Cambridge, Maryland.
Many other items pertaining to Annie and the “Wild West” show are in the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming. One of Annie’s residences, a home in Cambridge, Maryland, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Of all the legendary figures that have been associated with the American West, none can match the decency and integrity of Annie Oakley. Beloved by millions, her natural skills and hard work, her modesty and beauty represented all that was the best in America’s womanhood. She will always remain a great lady. We are proud to include her story in our retelling of Marion’s history.
(Article titled “Little Miss Sure Shot Visited Marion”, written by Bernard A. Paul, published in Marion Living Magazine, February 2006)