Women of the Wild West have their own special place in history whether they were performers or outlaws. Tales of the Wild West are typically centered around legendary men: Wyatt Earp Doc Holliday Jesse James Billy the Kidd Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. However there were certainly women involved in settling the west as pioneers and owning and using a gun wasnt a rarity in those days. It was a means of survival. Today people view gun ownership in a different light spending more time arguing about
gun control than worrying about varmints or thieves making off with their hard-won food supply. What people consider today as
living off the grid was nothing more than a way of life back then. Entire families had to know how to protect themselves and their property if they were meant to survive and thrive.
Four Women
Four of the most famous women of the 1800s were Calamity Jane Annie Oakley Pearl Hart and Belle Starr. These women whatever their reasons made names for themselves by toting guns and secured places in American history. In fact some of these women were known to outshoot their counterparts further cementing their reputations.
Calamity Jane
Martha Jane Canary (May 1 1852 August 1 1903) became known in her later years as Calamity Jane an American frontierswoman and professional scout. Jane traveled to the West with her parents at age 13 and quickly adapted to the rough and tumble lifestyle. She was more likely to be fighting than be at home baking. Jane scoffed at ladies styles of the time and preferred to be dressed in mens attire including uniforms. She was a hard drinker fearless rider and expert shot. Little can be documented about Calamity Janes exploits but it is known that she was an acquaintance of Wild Bill Hickok.
Annie Oakley
Phoebe Ann Mosey (August 13 1860 November 3 1926) was a renowned American sharpshooter who went by the name Annie Oakley. Annies talent became apparent at a young age when she began to participate in competition. Frank Butler a marksman who exhibited in traveling show once claimed he could beat any fancy shooter in the town. Annie Oakley proved him wrong. The two eventually married and in 1885 joined in Buffalo Bills Wild West Show performing alongside Buffalo Bill Cody and Sitting Bull. It was Sitting Bull that gave her the nickname of Watanya Cicilla translated to Little Sure Shot in show advertisements. The 1899 Paris Exposition saw the height of Annies career. The sharpshooter was world famous earning more money than the other performers save for Buffalo Bill.
Pearl Hart
Pearl Taylor Hart (c. 1871 after 1928) was a Canadian born shooter who migrated to the U.S. and became a notorious outlaw. Pearl idolized Annie Oakley and aspired to live in the Wild West. She moved to Arizona leaving her children behind. Hart began to live a wild hedonistic life while struggling to make ends meet as a cook in a boardinghouse. Desperate to make enough money to return to Canada to support her ailing mother Pearl teamed up with Joe Boot" to commit a series of robberies culminating in the robbery of a stagecoach. The robbery was minor by most standards. The fact that Pearl was a woman masquerading as a man and wielded a .38 rocketed her to outlaw stardom. Hart was arrested but later escaped. She was caught two weeks later but was eventually pardoned.
Belle Starr
Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr (February 5 1848 February 3 1889) AKA Belle Starr was a notable American outlaw. Starrs affiliation with the JamesYounger Gang and other criminals landed her a place in American history. Like Pearl Hart Belle had no use for ladies finery and preferred buckskins and a Stetson adorned with an ostrich plume. She wore her six-shooters with pride but was not known to participate in gun fights. Rather Starr used her cunning and feminine wiles to run bands of rustlers to do her bidding.
After Starrs husband Jim Reed was shot and killed by a deputy sheriff Starr increased her wild behavior. She gambled drank and shot up the town on a regular basis. Although The Bandit Queen" was known to organize robberies she was only ever convicted for horse theft in 1883.
In February 1889 Belle Starr was ambushed while riding home from a neighbors house. Official details are unclear but Starr died from multiple shotgun wounds possibly fired from her own double-barreled shotgun.
