Myra Maybelle Belle Shirley, AKA Belle Starr was reinvented by the media, as were many others. She was from an affluent Southern family, raised in...
Belle Starr
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Western Women
Mail Order Brides
Are they still around today? You may be surprised to learn that international marriages facilitated by brokers and dating tourism sites are more...
Little Sure Shot
Annie Oakley gains world-wide fame with Buffalo Bill. In April 1885, sharpshooter Annie Oakley joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. She’d already...
Don’t Bet Against a Sporting Girl
How soiled doves tried to beat the odds against hypocrisy and politicians For several decades, Hollywood has had a fine time portraying...
Opening Shot
Wanton Women of Montana In the 1890s, prostitution and red-light district brothels were common across the Big Sky State. In this unknown Montana...
Belles of Boomtown
Female performers who played in the rough-hewn mining camp theaters had an edge on their male counterparts simply because they were women. That...
Women Peace Officers in the West
Were there any women peace officers in the Old West? Holly Dew (Ahwatukee, AZ) I haven't run across any from the Old West and I believe if there was...
Lola Montez
Women were an attractive curiosity during the heyday of the California Gold Rush. A woman could hang her underwear out on a clothesline and draw a...
The West’s First Female Gunfight
When the Legend Becomes the Truth Print the Legend There is a persistent myth that the first gunfight in the West between women occurred in Denver...
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...
We Won’t Back Down
Western women led the way for woman suffrage 50 years before 19th Amendment became the law of the land.
Locked and Loaded!
Pearl Hart and a posse of sharpshooting Western women shaped the West from the barroom to the courthouse.