The Last Ride of Bonnie McCarroll

An on-the-scene account you’ve likely never heard until now. Perhaps the best known photo of a woman bronc riding is the 1915 image of Bonnie McCarroll by rodeo photographer Ralph Doubleday. Bonnie is shown upside down, ringlet curls flying as her head nears the hard-packed grass of Oregon’s Pendleton Round-Up arena  for a landing that looks as if it could be a serious one. The bronc, a bay called Silver, is high in the air, shown mid-buck, ragged hooves flying. A remarkable feature of th