wild women of the west

Twenty-nine-year-old Florence LaDue laid on her back in the middle of a rodeo arena in Alberta, Canada, twirling a lasso. It was July 1910 and the crowd in the stands watching her work were cheering and whistling. The trick the petite cowgirl was preparing to do was to throw a wide loop over a rider...

“I rode my first horse on a bet,” admitted World Champion cowgirl Dorothy Morrell in 1917. “That I am champion woman rider of the world today was due to an accident, or rather a dare.” At the age of twenty-four Dorothy attended a wild west exhibition in Fresno and was mesmerized by the women bronc...

The crowd attending the John Robinson’s Circus in Clarksdale, Mississippi, swelled around the rodeo arena where expert equestrian, roper, and whip cracker Pearl Biron was performing. The twenty-six-year-old Pearl was the master of the Australian bullwhip.  She could flick the ashes off the cigarette of a fellow performer or a flag off the head of her...

On Saturday, July 1, 1916, at the Passing of the West rodeo in Butte, Montana, it appeared all the wild, outlaw horses had been saved for the lady riders.  It took cowboys ten minutes to corral and saddle the cantankerous animal cowgirl Peggy Warren was to ride.  The horse reared and bucked, kicked and plunged,...

Boards, automotive parts, and motorboat engines blocked the main entrance of a majestic home in Ogden, Utah, known as the White Mansion. Every inch of the yard surrounding the house was crowded with engines, windshield, tools, and tires. The interior of the house was in the same condition. It was difficult for residents living near...

Among the top stories that made the front page of the June 21, 1873, edition of the Denton Journal in Denton, Maryland, were two articles about the Matrimonial News publication. The unique periodical was so widely read some editors felt it necessary to report on its popularity. Under the headline “Marriage by Advertisement,” journalists noted...

The crew and passengers aboard the steamship the City of Columbia stood huddled together on the flooded deck of the vessel. Night was all around them and an awful moment of peril and suspense hung in the wet air. A perfect storm had overtaken the steamer and raging winds had driven her into a mass...

The steamship Continental pitched and rolled as it traveled over the rough waters of the Pacific Ocean en route to the northwest section of the United States. The two dozen women on board were violently ill with sea sickness and desperate for the waves to subside. They were either lying on their bunks in their...