wicked woman wednesday

Her name was Annie McIntyre Morrow, and the story of her life and times in the Idaho mining camps of Atlanta and Rocky Bar is one of tragedy, courage, and resourcefulness.  She was born in Van Buren County, Idaho, on September 13, 1858.  Her mother died giving birth to her.  Annie’s father, Steve McIntyre, brought...

The impact of women on the American frontier in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries should not be underestimated.  To a large degree women were responsible for taming the wilderness.  Under their influence churches were formed, schools, and libraries were established, and the importance of home and hearth was rediscovered.  The result was nothing short...

Libby Thompson twirled gracefully around the dance floor of the Sweetwater Saloon in Sweetwater, Texas.  A banjo and piano player performed a clumsy rendition of the house favorite, “Sweet Betsy From Pike.”  Libby made a valiant effort to match her talent with the musician’s limited skills.  The rough crowd around her was not interested in...

It was almost eight in the morning on June 3, 1895, when Jennie Freeman and Belle Black rode into the quiet, unassuming town of Fairview, Oklahoma.  The women, who would later be described by the people they robbed as “neither young, fair, nor dashing”, steered their rides toward a large, brick building that was a...

Every bed in the hospital at the military prison in Louisville, Kentucky was filled with wounded and dying men.  The Civil War had officially ended on April 9, 1865, but Rebels still fighting for their lost cause refused to surrender.  Union soldiers pursued renegade Confederates until they were captured or shot.  Guerilla leader William Quantrill...

Ohio native Victoria Claflin Woodhull was one of the most controversial outlaws in the Midwest.  Her arrest in early November 1872 on federal obscenity charges attracted the attention of political pundits and social reformers from Washington, D.C., to the Wyoming Territory.  Labeled by the press as “a most immoral woman,” hundreds of newspaper reporters were...