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Bronc busting champion Kitty Wilkes won her first title at the Wild West Celebration Rodeo in Miles City, Montana, in 1916.  The seventeen-year-old New York native’s straightforwardness and untamed physical daring gave fans the impression she was born and bred into the rugged life of a Wyoming ranch.  Few would have guessed she was new...

Mary Wiggins worshipped excitement. As a double for such screen stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Dorothy Lamour, Norma Shearer and Claudette Colbert she loved to climb the facades of tall buildings, to leap from a running horse to a speeding automobile, to fly a plane while blindfolded. Wiggins was one of the top stuntwomen during the...

Mrs. Frank “Tobey” Riddle, better known as Winema, was a mediator for the Modoc people, other Indian tribes in the area of Klamath Lake, Oregon, and the United States Army in early 1878. With her skills she was able to negotiate treaties that kept the land of her ancestors in peace. Whenever that peace was...

Academy Award winning actress Mercedes McCambridge portrayed Joan Crawford’s vindictive nemesis in Republic Pictures’ psychological Western Johnny Guitar. She was also Rock Hudson’s strong-willed older sister in Giant.  A versatile, radio-trained character actress with a strong resonant voice, McCambridge specialized in playing forceful, domineering characters on screen. Many film critics believed she outshined Crawford in...

Among Geronimo’s band of thirty-six loyal warriors was an unassuming medicine woman named Lozen.  The petite, plain woman dressed like the braves she fought with and the courageous renegade who led the group would not make a move without her wise council.  It was her divine power that kept Geronimo and his followers out of...

Bronc busting champion Kitty Wilkes won her first title at the Wild West Celebration Rodeo in Miles City, Montana, in 1916.  The seventeen-year-old New York native’s straightforwardness and untamed physical daring gave fans the impression she was born and bred into the rugged life of a Wyoming ranch.  Few would have guessed she was new...

When news that cowgirl and silent film actress Victoria Forde had left her husband, Western star Tom Mix, in August 1928, fans were crushed.  The husband-and-wife team had entertained audiences in several films together between 1914 and 1922. Both were skilled riders who performed their own stunts in the cowboy and outlaw movies made for...

Reel cowgirl Ruth Roland portrayed Pearl Marvin in a dozen silent films in The Perils of Pauline series between 1915 and 1917. Fans were on the edge of their seats watching the spunky actress ride her way in and out of trouble while solving crimes.  They waited in suspended animation for the film operator to...

The sun blazed high in a brassy sky, and heat danced in undulating waves across the high plateau town of Winslow, Arizona.  In the far distance, a train with the name Santa Fe Railway embossed on its side hurried along steel rails toward the La Posada Hotel.  It was May 15, 1930, opening day for...