wild woman

Thirteen-year-old Josie Reed hurried past the brush and trees lining a crude trail leading the way to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Tres Piedras, New Mexico. She moved with the ease of one who had a long acquaintance of the terrain, dodging boulders and logs that at times blocked the narrow footpath. A...

A handsome, wisp of a woman stepped out on the deck of the steamship City of Seattle and peered into the dazzling sunlight reflecting off the mountains surrounding the harbor in Dawson City, Yukon. Thirty-nine years old, Lillian Malcolm’s heart contracted with excitement and a strong sense of longing as she breathed in the clean,...

“He must be close to fifty,” a friendly Leadville resident shared with Baby when she asked to know more about Horace. “They say he’s worth $8 million and likes to play poker in the saloons around town after the theater lets out,” the man continued. “He was one of the early prospectors out here –...

A shabby-looking prospector emerged from the dark, weathered entrance of the Matchless Mine in Leadville, Colorado and straightened his stooped shoulders. He dropped his pickaxe beside a rusty ore cart and rolled and lit a cigarette. His weary face was set in a scowl as he surveyed the mountains rising precipitately around the well-worked diggings....

Night had fallen over Tombstone, Arizona, and every restless and rowdy character in the vicinity of the southwestern town had poured into the saloons and gambling dens to while away the hours until dawn arrived. The doorways of the numerous taverns that lined Allen Street were illuminated with smoky kerosene torches. Signs that hung over...

Bitterly cold snow flurries pelted the determined features of twenty-one-year-old Ethel Berry’s face as she drove her dog sled over the Chilkoot Pass in Alaska. Clad in a pair of men’s mackinaw breeches and moccasins, she cracked her whip over the team of animals hauling an enormous mound of supplies behind them. Ethel was slowly...

The discovery of gold in California in 1849, sparked a raging fever in thousands of Argonauts hoping to strike it rich. Among the flood of fathers, sons, brothers, and husbands that ventured west were mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives. Although they were few in number, women shoveled and picked through tons of gravel working shoulder...

“I shall give you a full, true, and particular account of the discovery, rise, and progress of this place, with a religious adherence to dates which will rather astonish your unmathematical mind.” —Excerpt from Louise Clappe’s letter to her sister Mary Ann, September 20, 1851 The sun hung like a golden disc in an impossible...