Women of the West: Cowgirls, Homesteaders, and Trailblazers

Cheyenne, Wyoming. Frontier Days, 1904. The crowd came for the cowboys. What they got was a young rider from Colorado named Bertha Kaepernik climbing onto a bucking horse, the first woman ever to ride a bronc at Cheyenne. She stayed in the sport for years afterward and won the bucking horse championship at the Pendleton Round-Up three times between 1911 and 1914. The National Rodeo Hall of Fame says she competed "on an equal basis with men."

That's the thing about the women of the West. Once you start looking, they're everywhere: in the saddle, on the claim, on the mail route, and at the ballot box before women almost anywhere else on earth could vote.

Short Answer: Cowgirl history begins on working ranches in the late 1800s, where girls who grew up roping and riding took those skills into Wild West shows and early rodeos. Lucille Mulhall was one of the first women to rope steers against men, Bertha Kaepernik was the first woman to ride a bronc at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1904, and Annie Oakley became the biggest star of Buffalo Bill's Wild West. Beyond the arena, women filed at least one in ten homestead claims, and Wyoming Territory gave women the vote in 1869. The women of the Old West weren't a side note. They were half the story.

Where the word "cowgirl" came from

Nobody invented the cowgirl in a Hollywood writers' room. Ranch daughters had always worked cattle because ranches needed every pair of hands. What changed in the 1890s was that people started paying to watch. Wild West shows and hometown "cowboy tournaments" put ranch work in front of grandstands, and the girls who could ride and rope with the boys became headliners.

The Oklahoma Historical Society notes that the word "cowgirl" was around by the mid-1880s, but "few would argue" anyone did more to give it national meaning than one young woman from the Mulhall ranch in Oklahoma Territory.

Lucille Mulhall: the girl who roped with the men

Lucille Mulhall was born in 1885 and grew up on her family's ranch, roping and riding as naturally as walking. Her father, Zack Mulhall, ran a Wild West troupe, and she was performing in it while she was still a girl. According to the Oklahoma Historical Society, Theodore Roosevelt watched her ride on the family ranch and called her the "first cowgirl." There's a famous legend that he told her she could ride in his inaugural parade if she roped a wolf, and that she came back with one a few hours later. Enjoy it as a legend. What's documented is better anyway.

Mulhall competed head to head with men in steer roping and regularly beat them. The National Cowgirl Museum calls her "one of the first and most accomplished riding and roping champions." She earned the title "Champion Lady Steer Roper of the World" at the Calgary Stampede, rode with the Miller Brothers' 101 Ranch Wild West, formed her own troupe in 1913, and in 1916 produced her own rodeo, Lucille Mulhall's Roundup. She was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1975 and the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1977.

Bertha Kaepernik and the cowgirl bronc riders

Back to Cheyenne. Bertha Kaepernik was born in 1883 and entered rodeo at Cheyenne in 1904. She later married a bulldogger named Dell Blancett, kept competing as a bronc rider and Roman racer, and was widowed during World War I. Later in life she worked as a guide at Yosemite National Park. She lived to 96, and the National Rodeo Hall of Fame inducted her in 1975.

She wasn't alone. Through the 1910s and 1920s, cowgirls rode saddle broncs, raced horses, and trick-roped at the biggest rodeos in the country, including Cheyenne and Pendleton. If you want to see how those contests grew out of ranch work in the first place, our history of rodeo walks through it.

Then the doors started closing. The Oregon Encyclopedia records that the 1929 death of bronc rider Bonnie McCarroll led Pendleton to bar women contestants. Across the sport, the Texas State Historical Association notes, the Depression and World War II squeezed women's events until they nearly disappeared, and rodeo queen pageants took their place.

But cowgirls don't quit. On February 28, 1948, 38 women from Texas and Oklahoma met at a hotel in San Angelo, Texas, and founded the Girls Rodeo Association. It's now the Women's Professional Rodeo Association, and the Texas State Historical Association calls it the oldest women's professional sports organization in the United States. Every barrel race you've watched runs back to that room. And at Pendleton, women came back to compete in barrel racing in 2000. If you're heading to Cheyenne to watch the cowgirls run, our Cheyenne Frontier Days first-timer's guide has you covered.

Annie Oakley: Little Sure Shot

The most famous woman of the Wild West era grew up nowhere near the West. Annie Oakley was born Phoebe Ann Moses in 1860 in Darke County, Ohio. Her family was poor, and after her father died she took up his old rifle and hunted small game for a grocery in Greenville. According to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, by 15 she'd earned enough to pay off the $200 mortgage on her mother's house.

On Thanksgiving 1875 she beat touring marksman Frank Butler in a match, hitting 25 of 25 to his 24. He married her the next year and spent the next fifty years as her partner and biggest fan. In 1884, in St. Paul, Minnesota, the Lakota leader Sitting Bull watched her perform and nicknamed her "Little Sure Shot." The next year she joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West, stayed until 1901, and became its biggest star, performing for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887.

Here's the part that doesn't make the movies. Oakley used her fame to prove women were every bit as capable as men, and she taught thousands of women to shoot at no charge. When a newspaper chain printed false stories about her in 1903, she didn't shrug it off. She went to court, case after case, and cleared her name. She and Frank died 18 days apart in 1926.

The women who proved up

The arena gets the photographs, but most western women made their mark on a claim. The Homestead Act of 1862 said "he or she" all the way through, so single women, widows, and women heading households could file in their own names. The National Archives estimates that at least ten percent of homesteads went to single women, and in the early 1900s women made up 10 to 15 percent of homesteaders in states like Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and the Dakotas. In parts of southeastern Oregon, perhaps one in six was a young single woman.

One of them, Elinore Pruitt Stewart, wrote letters from her Wyoming claim that became a book, Letters of a Woman Homesteader, in 1914. It's still in print, and it's still one of the best accounts of what proving up actually felt like.

Stagecoach Mary

Mary Fields was born into slavery around 1832. In 1895, at roughly 60 years old, she won a Star Route contract to carry the U.S. mail between Cascade, Montana, and St. Peter's Mission. According to the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum, she was the first African American woman, and the second woman of any background, to hold a Star Route contract. She ran that route for eight years across harsh northern Montana country. When she died in 1914, Cascade gave her one of the largest funerals in the town's history. The mail went through a generation after the Pony Express had gone quiet, and Mary made sure of it.

The ballot came West first

On December 10, 1869, Wyoming Territory passed a law giving women the right to vote. WyoHistory.org calls it the first law in the world to grant women unrestricted voting rights. Two months later, Esther Hobart Morris became the nation's first woman justice of the peace, in South Pass City. When Wyoming became a state in 1890, it wrote women's suffrage into its constitution, and in 1925 Nellie Tayloe Ross became the first woman governor in the United States. Cheyenne, the same town where Bertha Kaepernik rode in 1904, was the capital of all of it.

Four myths worth retiring

"Cowgirls were just a costume." The first cowgirls were ranch-raised working hands who roped and rode against men and won. The costume came later.

"Women never rode rough stock." They rode broncs at the biggest rodeos in the country for a quarter century before they were pushed out.

"Annie Oakley was a frontier gunslinger." She was an Ohio girl who fed her family, married the man she beat, and became a world-famous exhibition marksman. That's a better story.

"The West was settled by men." At least one in ten homesteads went to single women, and western territories gave women the vote decades before the Nineteenth Amendment.

Why it still matters

Every one of these women was told, one way or another, that some part of the West wasn't for her. Lucille roped anyway. Bertha rode anyway. Mary carried the mail at 60. The women who founded the Girls Rodeo Association in 1948 built their own door when the old ones closed. That's the most western thing there is: when the trail runs out, you cut a new one.

Our family's American story started in 1630, and it has always leaned on the women who held the place together. We build our gear for the whole outfit. Every tee is made in the USA from 100% US-grown cotton, and every hat is built from scratch in the USA, never an imported blank. They're made to be worn hard, whoever's doing the work.

Quick Answers

Who was the first cowgirl? Lucille Mulhall (1885–1940) is widely credited as America's first cowgirl. Theodore Roosevelt reportedly gave her the title after watching her ride, and she competed against men in steer roping.

Who was the first woman to ride a bronc at Cheyenne Frontier Days? Bertha Kaepernik (later Blancett), in 1904. She went on to win the bucking horse championship at the Pendleton Round-Up three times between 1911 and 1914.

Where did Annie Oakley get the name "Little Sure Shot"? From the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, who saw her perform in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1884.

Could women homestead in the Old West? Yes. Single women, widows, and women heading households could file under the Homestead Act of 1862. At least ten percent of homesteads went to single women.

Why did women stop riding broncs in rodeo? After bronc rider Bonnie McCarroll died at the 1929 Pendleton Round-Up, Pendleton barred women contestants, and the Depression and World War II pushed most women's events out of rodeo.

When was the Women's Professional Rodeo Association founded? On February 28, 1948, in San Angelo, Texas, by 38 women, as the Girls Rodeo Association. It took the WPRA name in 1982.

Which state gave women the vote first? Wyoming Territory, on December 10, 1869, and it kept women's suffrage when it became a state in 1890.

Where is the National Cowgirl Museum? In Fort Worth, Texas. It was founded in Hereford, Texas, in 1975, moved to Fort Worth in 1994, and opened its current building in 2002.

Rope anyway. Ride anyway. Cut a new trail.

— The Sackett Ranch Family

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