wild women column

Twenty-seven-year-old Clare Hodges gently urged her chestnut roan through a thicket of trees and brush.  The horse’s hooves barely made a sound as it walked over a thick carpet of pine needles and maple leaves.  Bright streams of sunlight filtered through the branches of sequoias and spilled onto the ground with brilliant intensity.  A light...

A hot July breeze skidded across the banks of the Green River south of Fort Bridger, Wyoming.  The clear water flowed swiftly past a grove of trees, waving with the wind.  The grass on both sides of the river was spangled with flowers. Elizabeth Graves, a handsome woman in her late 40s, was decorating a...

It was almost eight in the morning on June 3, 1895, when Jennie Freeman and Belle Black rode into the quiet, unassuming town of Fairview, Oklahoma.  The women, who would later be described by the people they robbed as “neither young, fair, nor dashing”, steered their rides toward a large, brick building that was a...

When twenty four-year old Mildred Douglas rode a steer in the Garden City, Kansas, rodeo in 1919, it was a big deal.  No woman had ever ridden a steer in competition before.  But Douglas was no ordinary woman.  Born in Philadelphia on August 21, 1895, Mildred knew at the age of seven what she wanted...

(1894-1986) The stylish lobby of the Texas Hotel in Fort Worth was a bustle of activity on Saturday, March 11, 1922.  Well-dressed patrons were arriving and departing.  A string quartet in the corner of the massive entryway serenaded white-haired, prosperous looking gentlemen and their stocky, bejeweled wives being escorted to their rooms by attentive bellboys. ...

On March 1, 1933, four men left Casper, Wyoming, to search for a woman that had been missing since mid-February.  Mrs. Rose Coleman was reported missing by her husband, the reputed cattle rustler Charles W. Coleman.  Charles wrote his brother-in-law Ernest Gale from jail informing him that he’d not heard from his wife for more...

Hundreds of cheering fans flocked to the train depot in Caney, Kansas, on Sunday, October 24, 1920, to welcome the Yankee Robinson Circus to town.  When the coast and crew alighted from the multiple cars, the men, women, and children on hand to greet them applauded excitedly.  Most of the townspeople followed after the performers...

A strong gust of wind blew a pair of tumbleweeds into the path of a team of horses hitched to a wagon.  It spooked the animals, and they reared and bucked and then bolted.  The gray-haired women holding the reins of the team screamed.  The wagon pitched and swayed as the horses jerked it around. ...