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1860 - 1887 | 1888 - 1946
1888 |
April: Oakley returns to the stage, debuting in a variety show in Philadelphia. She engages in shooting competitions on the side, joins a rival Wild West show, and even acts in a play called Deadwood Dick. |
1889 |
February: After Lillian Smith leaves Cody's Wild West show, the stage is set for Oakley to return. A newspaper announces that she will be rejoining the show in time for its trip to Paris to participate in the Universal Exposition there.
Fall: When the Wild West show ends its six-month Paris run, Cody and his company embark on a three-year tour of Europe. |
1890 |
The United States Census Bureau declares that widespread settlement has brought an end to the American frontier. |
1892 |
October 27: Oakley returns to America a superstar, with newspapers clamoring for interviews and the public hanging on her every word. |
1893 |
December: The Butlers move into their new home in Nutley, New Jersey, more than a thousand miles from the "wild west" she has never lived in but has come to symbolize. |
1894 |
May: The Wild West show sets up shop for the summer in Brooklyn. For the first time, the show can be performed at night, thanks to an enormous array of new electric lights. Fall: Oakley travels to electric light inventor Thomas Edison's studio in West Orange, New Jersey, to give a shooting demonstration in front of another one of his contraptions called a kinetoscope. Edison wants to see if the kinetoscope, forerunner of today's motion picture cameras, can capture the smoke from Oakley's shots, which it does. October 6: The Wild West show closes for the season, a financial disappointment that Cody blames in part on the country's economic depression and the cost of running all the electric lights. |
1895 |
In an effort to restore its past profitability, Cody takes his Wild West show back on the road, visiting 131 towns. Oakley continues to tour with the show for the next several years, crisscrossing the country by train while firing, in her estimation, more than 40,000 shots in a single year. Oakley's act is celebrated throughout the country, but life on the road is exhausting for her. |
1900 |
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1901 |
October 29: Near the end of the Wild West season, the Butlers are in a train accident. Neither is injured but they are shaken up and decide to leave the show. Shortly thereafter, she retires from Cody's Wild West show for good, and Frank accepts a job as representative for the Union Metallic Cartridge Company. |
1902 |
November: Oakley returns to the stage, starring as the sharpshooting heroine in The Western Girl. She receives good reviews, and the play will run until March 1903. |
1903 |
August 11: In Chicago, publisher William Randolph Hearst's popular, sensationalist newspapers report that Annie Oakley is in prison, sentenced for "stealing the trousers of a negro in order to get money with which to buy cocaine." Though completely false, the story is picked up by newspapers from coast to coast. Oakley is livid and demands retractions; even though most of the newspapers comply, she is not mollified and ends up filing 55 libel suits. The legal battles will run until 1910, with Oakley traveling the country testifying in various courtrooms. Hearst will try to smear Oakley's reputation, even hiring a detective to travel to Greenville, Ohio and dig up dirt about her. But there is nothing to find, and Oakley will end up winning or settling 54 of her suits. She will collect awards ranging from $900 to $27,500, but ends up losing money when legal and other expenses are factored in. |
1908 |
August 18: Oakley, who has been appearing in various shooting events, learns that her mother has died and returns to Ohio. |
1910 |
May: Oakley pays a visit to Cody's Wild West, then performing at Madison Square Garden. Buffalo Bill asks her to return to the show, but she declines. |
1911 |
Oakley joins a rival show called Young Buffalo Wild West and performs with it for the next two years. Although now over 50, she keeps up with the show's grueling pace, traveling more than 8,000 miles in one 27-week span. |
1913 |
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1915 |
Summer: The Butlers embark on an automobile road trip and visit Buffalo Bill, who is now in failing health. The Butlers decide to winter in Pinehurst, North Carolina, where Oakley gives lessons to women who want to learn shooting. |
1917 |
April: The United States enters World War I. Oakley soon telegraphs the secretary of war, offering to raise a "regiment of women" to join the fight, but the government does not reply. Oakley ends up giving shooting demonstrations to raise money at various army camps around the country. November 11, 1918: World War I ends in Allied victory; Oakley joins the celebration at Pinehurst. |
1922 |
July 1: Oakley appears at a charity event on Long Island to benefit wounded soldiers. Although a bit out of practice, she still dazzles the crowd with her shooting abilities. November 9: A car accident in Florida fractures Oakley's hip and right ankle; for the rest of her life, she will walk with a leg brace. |
1924 |
December: The Butlers move to Dayton, Ohio. |
1926 |
April: Famed cowboy and humorist Will Rogers visits Oakley and later writes a glowing tribute to her in his Sunday newspaper column. Summer: In failing health, Oakley moves back to Darke County. November 3: Oakley dies in Greenville, Ohio; her husband of 50 years will pass away just 18 days later. |
1935 |
The first film version of Oakley's life, the movie Annie Oakley starring Barbara Stanwyck, debuts. |
1946 |
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1860 - 1887 | 1888 - 1946
page created on 2.14.06
Spring: The Paris Exposition, which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 
May 1: The 
July 25: Oakley performs in her home town of Greenville, Ohio, for the first time as a part of the Wild West show. Given a commemorative silver cup by the townspeople, Oakley says she prizes it "more highly than anything ever presented to me."
October 4: Annie Oakley's career in Wild West shows comes to an end; she retires after a performance in Marion, Illinois, and moves with Butler to a waterfront cottage near Cambridge, Maryland. Meanwhile, Cody has gone bankrupt, and a creditor sells off the show's memorabilia.
January 10: Buffalo Bill Cody dies in Denver, Colorado. Neither of the Butlers attends the funeral, but Oakley composes a eulogy for her old friend that runs in several newspapers. In it she calls Cody "the kindest, simplest, most loyal man I ever knew . . . the personification of those sturdy and lovable qualities that really made the West."
May 16: Rogers and Hammerstein's musical Annie Get Your Gun opens in New York with renowned singer Ethel Merman in the title role. The show will later be made into a film, and a TV series called Annie Oakley will run from 1954 to 1957.