Who Were the Toughest Women in the Old West?

Life on the Western frontier often meant harsh living conditions. The Old West consisted of a rugged environment with extreme weather. Those people who survived hardened quickly in response. These conditions required hard work, a pioneering spirit to thrive, and self-reliance due to vast distances. Women like Annie Oakley and the like often defied social expectations, breaking the expected traditional mode.

Born Phoebe Ann Mosey in 1860, she would change her name to Annie Oakley upon joining Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1885. Raised a large family with little money, Annie worked from an early age. To help out, she hunted to feed the family. Annie became such a crack shot that she killed enough lifestock to sell to restaurants, and she even paid the family’s mortgage. Her professional career started at age fifteen upon winning a shooting match against an experienced marksman named Frank Butler. Annie hit the mark twenty-five times for the same number of attempts.

When Did Annie Oakley Become Famous?

Annie Oakley’s fame grew performing matches around the country after marrying the same Frank Butler in 1876. They performed together, but Annie became more popular. Her fame grew exponentially after joining the world-famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1885. 

How Did Calamity Jane Become Famous?

Calamity Jane, really named Martha Jane Cannary, earned her fame through her shooting skills, half-truths, wild exploits, and dime novel tales. Like Annie Oakley, Jane learned to shoot early in life -not uncommon in the Old West. She tended to hang out with men, drink heavily, and frequently wore men’s clothing. By the late 1860s, further west in Montana and Wyoming, working various jobs. She ended up in the infamous boomtown of Deadwood, South Dakota’s Black Hills, by 1875.

Here, Calamity Jane’s fame took off. By now, she’d claimed to have met Wild Bill Cody, worked as an Indian fighter, or carried messages great distances for the U.S. Army. In 1895, Buffalo Bill hired Jane for his Western shows. The marketing pamphlets further exaggerated her stories, such as saving a stagecoach from an Indian attack outside of Deadwood. Many stories proved untrue but fed into America’s fascination with the disappearing Old West.

Calamity Jane’s nickname, whether earned or part of the colorful stories about her, came from her or other questionable sources. Many are thought to be embellished or worse. The most famous tale resulted from Jane saving a wounded Army captain fighting Native Americans. He said fighting her would be a calamity.

Additional sources claim Jane warned men that angering her would bring great calamity upon them. Preferring to hang out with men, she uttered the warning to build her feisty reputation. Lastly, during an 1874 expedition to fight local tribes, her fellow soldiers said it’d be a calamity if the Native Americans captured or killed her. After her 1903 death, the Army captain’s family came forward, stating that he had never met, served, or even knew Calamity Jane. Despite this, the story persisted.

Who Was Bandit Queen Belle Starr?

Though not nearly as famous as other Western women, Belle Starr was more notorious. Starting life as Myra Maybelle Shirley in Carthage, Missouri, in 1848 learned to ride and shoot. From the start, she kept notorious friends, such as Cole Younger of the Cole-Younger Gang fame. Upon moving to Oklahoma in the late 1870s, Starr took up horse theft, cattle rustling, and whiskey smuggling. 

By 1880, she married a Cherokee man named Samuel Starr. Starr became a bootlegger front and more. She earned her “Bandit Queen” moniker by reputation and dealing with many Old West outlaws, newspapers, and dime novels. Her repute grew after a nine-month jail sentence in 1883. With her husband’s shooting death in 1886, she took up with his brother and swore off crime. In 1889, unknown killers ambushed Belle Starr at night, shooting her dead. She was returning from town to her ranch. Despite many suspects, her case remained unsolved.