Famous Female Gunslingers of the Old West 

Ask anyone to name a famous female gunslinger from America’s Old West, and you’re very likely to hear ‘Annie Oakley’ before you even take your next breath. Her notoriety is well deserved, and her achievements are more than well-documented. As a star attraction in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, she performed countless crowd-pleasing stunts that earned her a permanent place in firearm history.

Whether it was using a mirror to hit a target behind her, splitting a playing card down the middle from 30 paces away, or shooting a cigarette right out of her husband’s lips, she was a showstopper to be remembered. But in the long shadow she’s cast, there are a few other female gunslingers that deserve just a little extra limelight.  

Lillian Frances Smith 

Annie Oakley wasn’t the only female gunslinger to star in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Lillian Frances Smith—or, as she was called in the show, “the Champion California Huntress”—is often remembered as little more than Annie’s rival. But Lillian deserves far more notoriety.  

Lillian began performing as a sharpshooter at the age of ten, and her father was so confident in her abilities that he offered the outrageous sum of $5,000 dollars to anyone who could best her. While that may not sound like much today, keep in mind that $5,000 in 1871 would be equivalent to well over one hundred grand today—and if her dad really had that kind of cash on hand, he never lost it to a challenging gunslinger.   

Lillian was a force to be reckoned with when she had a rifle in hand. At 14, she was hitting moving targets from over 30 feet away. She could hit her target while firing both left and right-handed, and even behind her when using the mirror trick that Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was famous for. In 1885, Lillian famously shattered 100 balls of glass in under 3 minutes using her Winchester rifle, and just two years later Buffalo Bill Cody himself offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who could outshoot Lilian. No one ever did. 

Lillian went on to perform in Great Britain’s Wild West Show as a gunslinger, and The Miller Brothers’ 101 Ranch Wild West Show as her famous stage persona Princess Wenona, a Sioux Princess. Her performances attracted famous spectators like Mark Twain and even Thomas Edison. While she may not have been a real princess off-stage, she was royalty to her fans.  

Stagecoach Mary Fields  

Working class heroes are overlooked far too often, but their contributions to history are nothing short of monumental. Mary Fields was a mail carrier for the US postal service, and while firearm proficiency may not immediately come to mind when you think of a gunslinger, bear in mind that carrying the mail was among one of the most hazardous professions in the Old West. Vast undeveloped land spanned between towns and cities, and crossing the distance meant facing the elements, punishing terrain, bandits, bears, mountain lions, and wolves. 

Born into slavery, Mary moved from to Ohio to Montana after emancipation to work at St. Peter’s Mission as a gardener and maintenance and repair worker. Her rough-and-tumble personality and penchant for drinking and carrying a firearm didn’t always win the favor of everyone at St. Peter’s, and her employment there as a custodian famously ended when an argument with a janitor ended in drawn pistols.

Thankfully, by the time she was in her sixties, her take-no-nonsense reputation won her a contract as a stagecoach mail carrier on one of the United States Postal Service’s star-routes, which were notoriously difficult to traverse. In a profession where one’s life depended entirely on one’s self-defense prowess, Mary was prevailing in her golden years. She kept that route for almost a decade and retired at the age of 71. I can only hope that I’m that intrepid when I’m in my 60s!  

Rose Dunn 

Unlike many who were born into poor families in the 1870s, Rose had the distinction of not only having been educated in school but also educated in how to be a gunslinger by her two outlaw brothers. Her brothers were members of George Newcomb’s gang, the Wild Bunch (not to be confused with Butch Cassidy’s famous gang of the same name), and she herself was inducted by her mid-teens. In a strange twist, Rose’s brothers decided to become bounty hunters at around the same time that she delved into a life of crime! 

In 1893, Newcomb was shot by US Marshals in Ingalls, Oklahoma. And though there are different accounts of exactly how Rose intervened on Newcomb’s behalf, she opened fire with a Winchester rifle and Newcomb was able to escape with his life.  

Two years later, Rose’s brothers (remember the outlaws turned bounty hunters?) shot and killed Newcomb, and then collected the bounty that US Marshalls had put on his head. Although Rose’s brothers denied that their sister had any involvement, one has to wonder: Did Rose sell out Newcomb? Would your opinion change if I told you she was romantically involved with him? It’s one of history’s great mysteries, to be sure.  

This is the part where I could make a cheesy pun about a rose having thorns, but I’ll spare you the grimace. Anyway, the following year one of Rose’s brothers, Bill Dunn, was killed in a shootout in Pawnee, Oklahoma while trying to collect another bounty. If only Rose had been there to cover him… 

Constance Kopp 

By the time Constance Kopp became the first female deputy sheriff in US history (how cool is that?), the Old West was beginning to look a little smaller in the proverbial rear-view mirror. But if ever there was a story befitting the end of the Old West, it just might be Constance the Cop and gunslinger. 

In 1914, Kopp’s buggy was struck by a reckless driver named Henry Kaufman, who refused to pay for the cost of repairs. Constance pursued legal recourse, and although she won, Kaufman refused to pay up. You might expect the story to end there, but the last few dying embers of the Wild West were still burning hot, and so was Kaufman’s temper.  

Prowlers opened fire outside the Kopp family home at night, and Constance began receiving letters signed ‘Friends of HK’. One such letter demanded that she surrender $1,000 to a stranger in black at a predetermined time and place. As I’m sure you’ll suspect, she notified the police, but she didn’t stop there. She showed up at the meeting place with a handgun! But no such stranger ever appeared.  

One of Kaufman’s coworkers apparently tipped off Constance of a plot to kidnap one of her young female family members, and he requested a meeting with Constance. Handgun ready once again, she met him, as requested, and he attacked her. As before, she had tipped off the police beforehand, and during the meeting the police were waiting out of sight for just such a situation.

They arrested the man, and soon afterward the handwriting on the threatening “Friends of HK” letters were matched to Kaufman’s by the police. Kaufman was arrested too, and the Sheriff of Hackensack, New Jersey was so impressed with Constance’s bravery that he asked her to be his undersheriff. And the rest, as they say, is history. 

Written by: Lanna Perkins, Education Writer