wild woman

There were many talented, female contract players at Republic Pictures.  In the mid-1940s the studio had more than a hundred-twenty actors in its’ stable of gifted individuals.  Some of those actresses became household names because of their work in front of the camera and others rose to fame as a result of their off-screen exploits. ...

“Man is a gaming animal. He must always be trying to get the better in something or other.”  Historian Charles Lamb – 1823   The New World gambling parlor in Marysville, California in 1851 was filled with prospectors and sojourners eager to lay their money down on a game of chance.  Patrons could choose from...

Tom King followed five, spirited, fast-moving horses into a dense line of trees seven miles outside the town of Fredonia, Kansas.  It was a stifling hot, August day in 1894. The ground the criminal’s horse’s hooves pounded into was cracked and dry. Sweat foamed around the animal’s neck and hind quarters.  Low hanging branches on...

A steady stream of miners, ranchers and cowhands filtered in and out of the Number 10 Saloon in Deadwood, South Dakota.  An inexperienced musician playing an out of tune accordion squeezed out a familiar melody ushering the pleasure seekers inside.  Burlap curtains were pulled over the dusty windows and fans that hung down from the...

According to the February 8, 1885, edition of the Colorado Transcript, when Charley Hatfield was born in 1837, her mother gave her the name of Charlotte.  Her friends and family called her Charley. The circumstances surrounding the infant’s birth were just as controversial as the life she would later lead. Charlotte was the product of...

Wild Bill Hickok had many female admirers in his lifetime, but Agnes Lake Thatcher was the only woman who completely captured his heart. The man known as the “deadliest pistolero in the Old West” often declared to his friends that he preferred being a bachelor. It was a surprise to many when he married a...

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...

Cad Wilson was no beauty, and she could not sing.  Yet her personality was such that the miners in Alaska’s Gold Rush area threw nuggets and gold watches onto the stage as she ran about laughing and picking up loot, all the while holding her dress up to display her skinny legs.  Eddie Dolan, the...