Journal Notes

Enter now to win a copy of

Along Came a Cowgirl:

Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows

Rodeo fans at the Round-Up in Pendleton, Oregon, in 1928 were thrilled by the prospect of meeting the cowgirl actress chosen to reign over the prestigious event.  Queen Mary Duncan had entertained motion picture audiences with her horseback riding skills in the popular silent films Four Devils and The River.  Audience members hoped she would demonstrate some of the roping and riding techniques she performed on screen at the event, maybe even participate in a relay race or two.  Champion trick rider Mabel Strickland, who had ruled as queen over the prior year’s program, had dazzled ticket buyers with an exhibition of her talent.  Queen Mary’s contribution to the festivities would not be as daring.

Born on August 13, 1894, in Luttrellville, Virginia, Mary learned to ride at a young age and could have gone on to work in Wild West shows but decided to attend Cornell University instead.  She left college after two years to go on the stage.  She made a phenomenal success in the Broadway plays Poppy and Shanghai Gesture.  On the merits of those performances, she was signed by Fox Film Corporation to appear in a series of films portraying a feisty rancher’s daughter who helped fight off cattle thieves.  The vivacious, auburn-haired beauty’s talent for the screen equaled her talent on stage.

Mary Duncan had been in Pendleton a month prior to the Round-Up.  She arrived with director Edward Sedgwick and other cast and crew members to film a movie entitled Our Daily Bread.  Sedgwick wanted to use the rodeo as a backdrop for the setting.  It was the first time in motion picture history that the Round-Up would be both heard and seen on the screen.  The director had filmed the rodeo in 1924 when his then wife, Josie Sedgwick had been the queen of the event.  Unlike Josie’s court, Mary’s did not feature cowboy attendants.  The Round-Up board of directors appointed a traditional court: two princesses from Pendleton and two from the surrounding area.  Queen Mary and her attendants appeared in the parade dressed in white leather costumes trimmed in black.  Mary rode in a stagecoach and her attendants followed her on horseback.

When the Round-Up concluded, Mary, Edward Sedgwick, and the others associated with the production of Our Daily Bread remained in the area.  Local newspaper reporters followed Mary’s every move, referring to her as “Queen” in the articles written about her and the film being made in the wheatfields and hills of Umatilla County.  “The people out here are perfectly marvelous,” she told a reporter for the La Grande Observer. “I wish you would convey for me how glorious my time in Oregon has been.”

Pendleton residents who spent time with the actress during her visit praised her for her charm and kindness.  Some claimed she was one of the “most talented Round-Up Queens who never rode a horse.” The community invited Mary back to the rodeo to serve again as the queen of the event years after she returned to Hollywood, but she declined the offer, insisting the honor should go to a working cowgirl.

Queen Mary Duncan died on May 9, 1993, at the age of ninety-eight.

Learn more about iconic cowgirls like Queen Mary when you read Along Came a Cowgirl

Enter now to win a copy of

Along Came a Cowgirl:

Daring and Iconic Women of the Rodeo and Wild West Shows

“Coming Soon!” read the billboards, “World Championship Rodeo! $10,000 in cash prizes! Biggest, wildest, most thrilling rodeo ever held!”

“What’s a rodeo?” inquired the lady in the large, wide-brimmed hat decorated with plumes and flowers.

“Darned if I know,” replied the woman in the puffed blouse and fluted skirt. “Let’s go and find out.”

Within the first five minutes, they got more thrills than they had ever had in their lives before. They saw a cowboy leap from the back of a running horse to the hurricane deck of a galloping steer – a great, wild brute fresh from the Great Plains, weighing nine hundred pounds and every pound full of fight. The steers seemed to be the meanest, most devilish animals that ever walked on four feet, but they were nothing compared to the outlaw horses the women watched trying to throw riders.

This attraction called a “rodeo” was no place for a weakling. It seemed, indeed, to be a man’s game, a red-blooded, two-fisted sort of a game where you would never expect to find a woman. However, the ladies were there, riding with the best of them. Outlaw horses or wild steers couldn’t scare those females from the cattle country.

For more than six years I’ve been writing about those brave, talented ladies in the Iconic Cowgirls column for this magazine. After so many articles and with the enormous interest in women in the rodeo sports, it seemed fitting to pen a book about those women whose names resounded in rodeo arenas across the nation in the early twentieth century. Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows highlights the ladies who ventured into the male dominated rodeo and trick riding world, defying all expectations.

In the beginning, rodeo events were confined to men, but it wasn’t long after the exhibitions began to grow in popularity that women joined the festivities. All they needed to do to compete was prove themselves as fearless as the men, and they did.

The origins of the rodeo can be traced to the early days of the American cattle industry. Once or twice each year, cowboys rounded up cattle on the ranges and drove the herds to various marketing centers. There, in celebration of the roundups, they staged informal competitions designed to exhibit the skills of their trade. The first formal rodeo contest was held in Cheyenne in 1872; the first competition offering cash prizes was staged in Pecos, Texas, on July 4, 1883, and the first such event charging admission took place in Prescott, Arizona Territory, on July 4, 1888.

The four events contested at most of the early rodeos were saddle bronco riding, bareback bronco riding, steer wrestling, and calf roping. Other events featured included exhibitions of trick riding, shooting, and simple lassoing, as well as a number of humorous contests such as attempts to milk a wild cow or to saddle a bucking bronco.

Women began competing in rodeos as early as 1890. Many women, west of the Mississippi, had been roping cattle and riding broncos, along with their male counterparts, since settling in the wild frontier. It was their skill in the saddle that enabled them to find places in rodeos and performing in Wild West shows.

Wild West shows were touring the country eight years before public rodeos came into being. One of the first such shows, and certainly the most well-known, was Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West. Organized in 1883 by William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill’s show was a leading source of entertainment and education for more than thirty years. During that time of worldwide travel and countless presentations, a variety of performers captured the hearts and imaginations of fans everywhere. Among those popular entertainers were courageous women bronc riders, calf ropers, trick riders and trick shooters.

The popularity of Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show prompted other businessmen to produce their own programs. Among some of the other western themed exhibitions were the 101 Ranch Wild West show, Pawnee Bill’s Wild West, Colonel Cummins’ Wild West Indian Congress and Rough Riders of the World, and Diamond Dick’s Congress of World’s Western Champions. Cowgirls seeking to earn their living riding wild horses, twirling lassos, and wrestling steers signed on with the various Wild West shows. Many of those cowgirls were given titles that reflected the acts in which they excelled. Posters and flyers referring to the shows’ stars as “Champion Lady Bronc Rider,” “Best Relay Race Rider,” or “All-Around Champion Cowgirl of the World” were displayed in stores, railroad depots, restaurants, and other such establishments from coast to coast. Those labels attracted patrons, but, more often than not, the titles given to the cowgirls were unofficial.

Iconic cowgirls Fox Hastings, Tillie Baldwin, and Mabel Strickland were all billed at the same time as “Champion Lady Bulldogger.”  Mildred Douglas, Goldie St. Clair, and Prairie Rose Henderson were likewise labeled as the “Lady Bronc Riding Champion.”  Florence LaDue, Hazel Hickey Moore, and Bonnie Gray were all celebrated in the same time period as “Best Trick Roper.”  All the women were exceptional at their given talent, and all were proclaimed as top in their fields by the directors of the Wild West shows in which they rode. It wasn’t until women participated in rodeo events and won that they could officially be recognized as “champion,” or “best of…” in whatever category they were competing.

Lucille Mulhall was one of the first women superstars of the rodeo and Wild West shows. By the time she was eighteen, she had won numerous bronc riding and steer roping honors. In 1904, she won a gold medal for steer roping at the Cattle Convention Rodeo in Fort Worth. The three steers she roped in the show were picked out of an immense herd of wild and unruly beasts. She roped and tied the first one at one minute forty-five seconds. She cut that time down to one minute and eleven seconds with her second steer, and she dropped her third one in the remarkable time of forty seconds. Her total time for the three was three minutes and thirty-six seconds, several seconds faster than the nearest cowboy against whom she was competing. After her win in Texas, she was hailed as the “Queen of the Range.”

Mulhall set the stage for other daring cowgirls to follow. There was Blanche McGaughey, a bronc buster for the 101 Ranch Wild West Show who consistently won top honors at the Pendleton and Cheyenne rodeos and was recognized as the champion woman bronc buster of the northwest in 1912 and 1913; Pearl Biron, a trick roper who could flick the ashes off the cigarette of a fellow performer or a flag off the head of her horse; relay racing sensation Donna Card Glover who won multiple trophies at rodeos across the country, including the Yankee Stadium Rodeo in New York; and Lulu Parr, “Champion Lady Bucking Horse Rider of the World” who not only excelled at riding outlaw horses, but buffalos, too.

Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows is the story of these riding marvels from yesteryear. Young women admired these cowgirls – women who dared to break society’s traditional roles, jump aboard a horse, and hold their own in a male profession. The women included in the book came from a variety of backgrounds and locations, but all had in common the desire to entertain crowds on the backs of their horses. With a lot of grit and determination, they were able to saddle up and follow their dreams.

Learn more about these amazing women when you read Along Came a Cowgirl

Enter now to win a copy of

Along Came a Cowgirl:

Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows

Forword by Ken Amorosano

Publisher of COWGIRL and True West Magazines.

The Iconic horsewomen of the American West, as depicted in the pages of Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows, were trailblazers in every sense of the word.  Proving themselves fearless, athletic, and above all, “good horsemen,” was not only a goal, but a mission in many of their lives.

Along this rough and storied path is a very rare narrative that includes world records set, true stardom, and a stream of broken dreams and in many cases, broken bones.

Adventure, freedom, and a tough American grit endeared many horsewomen of the early 20th century to enter the man’s world of rodeo and along with it came fame, fortune, and a hardscrabble lifestyle only the toughest could endure.

Chris Enss is a prolific chronicler of these women, giving insight to a rough and tumble brand of Cowgirl with moxie and a lot to prove.  Her mastery of getting to the core of the story is what makes Chris the gifted writer that she is.

Along Came A Cowgirl is an important historical account of the individual lives and stories that cemented the reputation and lore of the early American cowgirl chronicled by a writer who not only knows her subject intimately but is also a trailblazer as a woman of the West.  Chris Enss is well known for her historic compositions, books, and articles about women of the West and the history and times in which they lived.

With names like Mabel Strickland and Florence LaDue, these ladies were the superstars of their time, executing death-defying stunts atop speeding horse and going head-to-head with the men in bronc riding and steer wrestling competitions much to the delight of the crowds and to the chagrin of the rodeo men.

While competing for prize money in rodeos such as the Pendleton Round Up and Cheyenne Frontier Days, the lure of the Wild West Shows brought greater excitement and international fame.  Although they were competitors earning a living from prize money, they were entertainers more than anything and they reveled in the accolades of screaming audiences and relished precious moments in front of royalty in places they would never have dreamed of being.

Many of the cowgirls in Along Came A Cowgirl attained great fame becoming super stars in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show and many others including the 101 Ranch Wild West show, Pawnee Bill’s Wild West, and Colonel Cummins’ Wild West Indian Congress and Rough Riders of the World.

Not only did the young American cowgirls wow the crowds in Paris and New York, they also broke molds of the norm and set fashion trends all the while dressed to the nines in fancy boots, hats, scarves, colorful riding dresses, pants, and chaps. These were the true sweethearts of the rodeo, and no man was to stand in their way.  Although sometimes shunned by a prudent audience of big city ladies for riding in pants as unladylike, these spitfire mavericks were the Madonna’s of their time, and they lived and regaled in every minute of it.

Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows is the story of these pioneering cowgirls who lived life to its fullest and who’s legacy still lives today in the lives of the modern-day cowgirl.

Email gvcenss@aol.com to enter to win a copy of Along Came a Cowgirl.

The September 2022 edition of Wild West Magazine included a review of

The Lady and the Mountain Man

Enter to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Library Journal Review

Isabella Bird is one of Colorado’s favorite historical figures. The fearless Englishwoman rode all over Colorado’s mountains in 1873, in bad weather and by herself. “The Lady and the Mountain Man” is a definitive treatment of Bird’s life.

Bird was an invalid, and doctors recommended sea voyages to improve her health. She was intrigued with the American West, and once healed, she came here by herself to explore the mountains. She settled in Estes Park where she met infamous mountain man Jim Nugent. Mauled by a grizzly, Mountain Jim was scarred and missing an eye, but Bird found him handsome. He had a reputation for violence, particularly when he was drunk, and Bird was warned against him.

The two fell in love, but a future together was not to be.

In this detailed account of the star-crossed lovers, the author — who is known for her books on Western women — plumbs both Colorado and British resources. In Enss’ hands, Bird is not a female oddity, but a woman of strength, courage, and loyalty

“A poignant biography of the survivors of Little Bighorn, a new collection of short stories, a biography of a Chinese frontier leader, a history of a new people of the West and a stark Western tale.”  True West Magazine   

Over the past two decades, Western Writers of America President Emeritus Chris Enss has established herself as one of the preeminent authors of Western women’s history. Her most recent, The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn (TwoDot, $26.95), sets a new standard for Western researchers seeking a greater understanding of the stories of survivors of war, epidemics and natural disasters in the post-Columbian era of the Western United States. Written with her longtime collaborator Howard Kazanjian and Chris Kortlander, a noted collector of George Armstrong and Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon Custer primary materials, Enss’s book places the reader into the storyline of the lives of the 7th Cavalry officers and their ignoble leader Lt. Col. Custer just after the Battle of Little Bighorn. The authors’ narrative recounts the story of the widows of the seven married officers, before, during and after the battle—and how each of their lives were fated to be assigned to Custer’s 7th Cavalry at Fort Lincoln, Dakota Territory. At the center of the seven-decade chronicle is Libbie Custer, the acknowledged leader of the 7th Cavalry’s officers’ wives, a role she would hold until her passing in 1933. As the authors note, until her final breath four days before her 91st birthday, Libbie championed her late husband and lived her life as positively as possible in support of herself and those who survived those killed at Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

I particularly like The Widowed Ones for its expansion of our understanding of the well-chronicled Battle of Little Bighorn and the leadership of both the American and Indian allies and enemies of the Great Sioux War of 1876. I have thought for many years that historians of post-Civil War America still have a lot of material to quantify and qualify related to the aftermath and long-term effects of the violence meted out and absorbed by so many Americans of all ethnicities, races and religions. The post-traumatic effects of the War Between the States, which contributed to the frontier violence between settlers, Native peoples and the American military, also affected subsequent generations, especially those who had family killed or maimed in conflict during the settlement of the Western half the United States after 1865.

Enss’ next book, Along Came a Cowgirl: Daring and Iconic Women of Rodeos and Wild West Shows (TwoDot), will be on shelves in September 2022, but I believe she will be willing to shed tears on the page to write the stories of more women and their children, whose voices have been rarely or never heard before.

—Stuart Rosebrook

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Seven, Seventh Cavalry officers’ wives became widows on June 25, 1876.  Six of those ladies lived out the rest of their years in constant communication with one another.  They visited each other in their homes and traveled together to various tributes for their husbands.  In person and in letters, the widows discussed the difficulties of carrying on without their spouses, the financial hardships they were facing, and how best to handle the public criticism of the Seventh Cavalry and General Custer.  The bond the women shared proved to be what they needed to survive.  Each admitted to family or in their memoirs the crucial necessity of their friendships.

Grace Harrington, wife of Lieutenant Henry Moore Harrington, chose not to stay in close touch with the other widows.  Unlike Elizabeth Custer, Annie Yates, Maggie Calhoun, Molly McIntosh, Nettie Smith, and Eliza Porter, the remains of Grace’s husband could not be found, nor could any personal effects be identified that indicated where he last was on the battlefield.  There was no information at all regarding his whereabouts or if he had survived the savage fight.  He was listed as missing in action.  It was a declaration Grace couldn’t accept.

According to a letter written to Elizabeth Custer from Nettie Smith in December 1876, “Mrs. Harrington is adrift with no resolve.  She has kindly declined any effort to be consoled.  As her husband is the only one of the soldiers missing without a trace, she believes there is a chance he lived through the ordeal and must be rescued.”

An article from the July 7, 1876, edition of the Inter-Ocean listing the history of the deceased troops noted the likelihood Lieutenant Harrington was alive was extremely remote.  “…[O]f course, there is a bare possibility that this officer may have escaped,” the article read, “but men of experience in the wars of the borders, when asked a question on the subject, shrug their shoulders and say he had better have been killed.  The shrug and the remark suggest nameless horrors in connection with his name.”

To learn more about Grace Harrington and her husband read The Widowed Ones

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

George & Elizabeth Custer seated.

Persistent raindrops tapped against the windows of Elizabeth Custer’s Park Avenue apartment in New York City.  The prim, eight-four-year-old woman, clad in a black, Edwardian dress, stared out at the dreary, foggy weather.  She wore a pensive expression.  Her graying hair was pulled back neatly into a tight bun, although a few loose tendrils had escaped and gently framed her small face.  Her throat was modestly covered with lace.

The room around Elizabeth was grand in size and filled with items she had collected during her days on the Western Plains.  Framed drawings of the Kansas prairie, a trunk with George’s initials across the top, photographs of friends and family at various outposts, and an assortment of books on subjects ranging from travel beyond the Mississippi to the types of wildflowers that lined the Oregon Trail were among her treasures.  The sparse furnishings in the apartment were covered with newspapers and journals.  A small desk was littered with hundreds of letters.

Elizabeth glanced at the clock on a nearby table and then clicked on a radio housed in the gigantic cabinet beside her.  As she tuned the dial through static and tones, a bright, maroon light from the console of the radio sifted into the hollow of the dark room.  At the same time, the fog outside the window lifted a bit, and the vague, misty outlines of palatial apartment buildings, museums, and churches came into view.

Elizabeth found the radio station she was looking for and leaned back in a plush chair as a voice described upcoming programming.  She pulled a shawl around her shoulders and sat, patiently waiting.  After a few moments, an announcer broke in with pertinent information about the broadcast to which Elizabeth planned to listen:  an episode of Frontier Fighters entitled “Custer’s Last Stand.”  The airdate was June 26, 1926, fifty years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

To learn more about Elizabeth Custer’s life after her husband death read

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Enter now to win a copy of

The Widowed Ones:  Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Thirty-four-year-old Elizabeth Bacon Custer filed into the Methodist church in Monroe, Michigan, on August 13, 1876, with hundreds of others attending the memorial service of her husband of twelve years, General George A. Custer, and five of his officers killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.  She was adorned in a black bombazine (silk) dress with black fringe and a black bonnet with a black crepe veil.  The mourning outfit would be her standard wardrobe for years to come.  She walked mechanically, but purposefully, down the center aisle, her eyes focused on a reserved seat in the front pew.  Friends and acquaintances smiled piteously at her as she passed; some refrained from looking at her at all.  Those who knew of her and her well-known husband by reputation only stood on tiptoe and craned their necks to watch her every move.

The heat that afternoon was sweltering.  Members of the Baptist and Presbyterian churches had joined the Methodists to pay tribute to the slain soldiers who were raised in the town located on the western shores of Lake Erie.  The combination of congregants along with the other funeral goers made the atmosphere in the house of worship oppressive.  Halftones from the bright sun diffused through the stained-glass windows cast a colorful light on the portrait of General Custer sitting on the organ next to a magnificent podium in the very front where the pastor delivered his weekly sermons.  Custer’s picture was surrounded with an evergreen wreath, and two sabers crossed underneath the picture.  The names of Captain Yates and Henry Armstrong Reed were scrawled across ribbons encompassing another display in evergreen.

 To learn more about the Elizabeth Custer and the other widows read

The Widowed Ones: Beyond the Battle of the Little Bighorn.