National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of FameW
National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame

The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame is located in Fort Worth, Texas, US. Established in 1975, it is dedicated to honoring women of the American West who have displayed extraordinary courage and pioneering fortitude. The museum is an educational resource with exhibits, a research library, and rare photography collection. It annually adds Honorees to its Hall of Fame.

Eulalia BourneW
Eulalia Bourne

Eulalia "Sister" Bourne was a pioneer Arizona schoolteacher, rancher and author. She taught at rural Arizona schools from 1914 to 1957.

Clara BrownW
Clara Brown

Clara Brown was a former enslaved woman from Virginia who became a community leader, philanthropist and aided settlement of former slaves during the time of Colorado's Gold Rush. She was known as the 'Angel of the Rockies' and made her mark as Colorado's first black settler and a prosperous entrepreneur.

Wanda Harper BushW
Wanda Harper Bush

Wanda Harper Bush was an American barrel racer who was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1978 and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2017. The August 2017 induction ceremony was ProRodeo's 38th annual event, and marked the first time in the event's history that the class of inductees included barrel racers from the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA). Bush competed in the Girl's Rodeo Association (GRA), now known as the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA) and won two World Barrel Racing Championships, in 1952 and 1953.

Evelyn CameronW
Evelyn Cameron

Evelyn Cameron was a photographer and diarist of the American West, who documented her life as a pioneer near Terry, Montana from the late 1890s onward. She is best known for her photography chronicling the early life of settlers in Eastern Montana, depicting cowboys, sheepherders, weddings, river crossings, freight wagons, ranch work, badlands, eagles, coyotes and wolves.

Nellie CashmanW
Nellie Cashman

Ellen "Nellie" Cashman, better known as Nellie Cashman, was a nurse, restaurateur, businesswoman and philanthropist in Arizona, Alaska, British Columbia and Yukon.

Willa CatherW
Willa Cather

Willa Sibert Cather was an American writer who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918). In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I.

Mildred Douglas ChrismanW
Mildred Douglas Chrisman

Mildred Douglas Chrisman is a 1988 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame inductee.

Patsy ClineW
Patsy Cline

Patsy Cline was an American singer. She is considered one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and was one of the first country music artists to successfully cross over into pop music. Cline had several major hits during her eight-year recording career, including two number-one hits on the Billboard Hot Country and Western Sides chart.

Mary ColterW
Mary Colter

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was an American architect and designer. She was one of the very few female American architects in her day. She was the designer of many landmark buildings and spaces for the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railroad, notably in Grand Canyon National Park. Her work had enormous influence as she helped to create a style, blending Spanish Colonial Revival and Mission Revival architecture with Native American motifs and Rustic elements, that became popular throughout the Southwest. Colter was a perfectionist, who spent a lifetime advocating and defending her aesthetic vision in a largely male-dominated field.

Gail DavisW
Gail Davis

Gail Davis was an American actress and singer, best known for her starring role as Annie Oakley in the 1950s television series Annie Oakley.

Angie DeboW
Angie Debo

Angie Elbertha Debo, was an American historian who wrote 13 books and hundreds of articles about Native American and Oklahoma history. After a long career marked by difficulties, she was acclaimed as Oklahoma's "greatest historian" and acknowledged as "an authority on Native American history, a visionary, and an historical heroine in her own right."

Dale EvansW
Dale Evans

Dale Evans Rogers was an American actress, singer, and songwriter. She was the third wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.

Laura GilpinW
Laura Gilpin

Laura Gilpin was an American photographer.

Veryl GoodnightW
Veryl Goodnight

Veryl Goodnight is a sculptor and since 2006 has been living in Mancos, Colorado. She is known for her equine sculpture - in particular a realistic depiction of horses, often in an American West context. She was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, in 2016.

Temple GrandinW
Temple Grandin

Mary Temple Grandin is a prominent proponent for the humane treatment of livestock for slaughter and author of more than 60 scientific papers on animal behavior. She is a consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior, and an autism spokesperson. She is one of the first individuals on the autism spectrum to document the insights she gained from her personal experience of autism. She is currently a faculty member with Animal Sciences in the College of Agricultural Sciences at Colorado State University.

Mary IngallsW
Mary Ingalls

Mary Amelia Ingalls was born near the town of Pepin, Wisconsin. She was the first child of Caroline and Charles Ingalls and older sister of author Laura Ingalls Wilder, known for her Little House book series.

Caroline IngallsW
Caroline Ingalls

Caroline Lake Ingalls was the mother of Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books.

Carrie IngallsW
Carrie Ingalls

Caroline "Carrie" Celestia Ingalls Swanzey was the third child of Charles and Caroline Ingalls, and was born in Montgomery County, Kansas. She was a younger sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who is known for her Little House books.

Grace IngallsW
Grace Ingalls

Grace Pearl Ingalls Dow was the fifth and last child of Caroline and Charles Ingalls. She first appeared in By the Shores of Silver Lake, and she was the youngest sister of Laura Ingalls Wilder, known for her Little House on the Prairie books.

Charmayne JamesW
Charmayne James

Charmayne James is a retired barrel racer who was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1992 and the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 2017. The August 2017 induction ceremony was ProRodeo's 38th annual event, and marked the first time in the event's history that the class of inductees included barrel racers from the Women's Professional Rodeo Association (WPRA). James' horse, Gils Bay Boy, nicknamed Scamper, was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame in 1996.

Kathy DaughnW
Kathy Daughn

Kathy Daughn is a cutting horse trainer who has won over $4.25 Million in cutting horse competition. She is an honoree in the NCHA Rider Hall of Fame and National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, and the first woman to win two NCHA Futurity Open Division Championship titles. Daughn rode The Gemnist to win the 1985 NCHA Futurity, marking an event-record score of 229. After of span of 15 years, she rode Royal Fletch to win the 2000 NCHA Futurity.

Julie KroneW
Julie Krone

Julieann Louise Krone, is a retired American jockey. In 1993, she became the first female jockey to win a Triple Crown race when she captured the Belmont Stakes aboard Colonial Affair. In 2000, she became the first woman inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame, and in 2003 became the first female jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race. She has also been honored by induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame and Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

Florence LaDueW
Florence LaDue

Florence "Flores" LaDue was the stage name of vaudeville performer and champion trick roper Grace Bensel.

Caroline LockhartW
Caroline Lockhart

Caroline Cameron Lockhart (1871–1962) was an American journalist and author.

Tad LucasW
Tad Lucas

Tad Lucas is a ProRodeo Hall of Fame cowgirl inductee.

Wilma MankillerW
Wilma Mankiller

Wilma Pearl Mankiller was a Cherokee activist, social worker, community developer and the first woman elected to serve as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, she lived on her family's allotment in Adair County, Oklahoma, until the age of 11, when her family relocated to San Francisco as part of a federal government program to urbanize Native Americans. After high school, she married a well-to-do Ecuadorian and raised two daughters. Inspired by the social and political movements of the 1960s, Mankiller became involved in the Occupation of Alcatraz and later participated in the land and compensation struggles with the Pit River Tribe. For five years in the early 1970s, she was employed as a social worker, focusing mainly on children's issues.

Anna Mebus MartinW
Anna Mebus Martin

Anna Henriette Mebus Martin (1843–1925) was a German-American Texas rancher and business woman. She rose from poverty to become one of the wealthiest Texans of German ancestry in her time. She chartered the Commercial Bank of Mason in 1901, and served as its president for twenty-four years. In 1986, Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 11270 was placed at the bank, acknowledging the contributions of Anna Mebus Martin and her family.

Maria MartinezW
Maria Martinez

Maria Montoya Martinez was a Native American artist who created internationally known pottery. Martinez, her husband Julian, and other family members examined traditional Pueblo pottery styles and techniques to create pieces which reflect the Pueblo people's legacy of fine artwork and crafts. The works of Maria Martinez, and especially her black ware pottery, survive in many museums, including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and more. The Penn Museum in Philadelphia holds eight vessels – three plates and five jars – signed either "Marie" or "Marie & Julian". Maria Martinez was from the San Ildefonso Pueblo, a community located 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. At an early age, she learned pottery skills from her aunt and recalls this "learning by seeing" starting at age eleven, as she watched her aunt, grandmother, and father's cousin work on their pottery during the 1890s. During this time, Spanish tinware and Anglo enamelware had become readily available in the Southwest, making the creation of traditional cooking and serving pots less necessary. Traditional pottery making techniques were being lost, but Martinez and her family experimented with different techniques and helped preserve the cultural art.

Billie McBrideW
Billie McBride

Billie McBride was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame for barrel racing in 2018. She won the World Barrel Racing Championship title four times.

Bonnie McCarrollW
Bonnie McCarroll

Bonnie McCarroll, born Mary Ellen "Dot" Treadwell, was a champion rodeo performer and bronc rider most remembered for her death at the Pendleton Round-up in Pendleton, Oregon. She also excelled in steer riding, bulldogging, and automobile jumping. In her riding career, McCarroll competed against such other women as Tad Lucas, Mabel Strickland, Fox Hastings, Dorothy Morrell (Robbins) and Florence Hughes.

Lilla Day MonroeW
Lilla Day Monroe

Lilla Day Monroe is a 1982 National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame inductee. Monroe was a lawyer, pioneer, and suffragette who spent the majority of her days in Topeka, Kansas. She contributed significantly to the Women's suffrage movement in Kansas. She also compiled the stories of over 800 women pioneers, which her great-granddaughter published as a book in 1982.

Patsy MontanaW
Patsy Montana

Rubye Rose Blevins, known professionally as Patsy Montana, was an American country music singer, songwriter and actress. Montana was the first female country performer to have a million-selling single with her signature song "I Want to Be a Cowboy's Sweetheart", and is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Esther Hobart MorrisW
Esther Hobart Morris

Esther Hobart Morris was the first woman justice of the peace in the United States. She began her tenure as justice in South Pass City, Wyoming, on February 14, 1870, serving a term of nearly 9 months. The Sweetwater County Board of County Commissioners appointed Morris as justice of the peace after the previous justice, R.S. Barr, resigned in protest of Wyoming Territory's passage of the women's suffrage amendment in December 1869.

Lucille MulhallW
Lucille Mulhall

Lucille Mulhall was a well-known cowgirl and Wild West performer.

Annie OakleyW
Annie Oakley

Annie Oakley was an American sharpshooter who starred in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show.

Sandra Day O'ConnorW
Sandra Day O'Connor

Sandra Day O'Connor is a retired attorney, politician, and the first woman Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a position she held from 1981 until her retirement in 2006. She was the first woman nominated and confirmed. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan, she was considered the swing vote for the Rehnquist Court and the beginning of the Roberts Court.

Georgia O'KeeffeW
Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe was an American artist. She was known for her paintings of enlarged flowers, New York skyscrapers, and New Mexico landscapes. O'Keeffe has been recognized as the "Mother of American modernism".

May OwenW
May Owen

May Owen was a Texas physician who discovered that the talcum powder used on surgical gloves caused infection and scar tissue to form on the peritoneum. She was the first woman elected as president of the Texas Society of Pathologists (1945), of the Tarrant County Medical Society (1947), and of the Texas Medical Association (1960). She endowed the second chair of the Texas Tech University School of Medicine and received many awards during her career, including induction into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame, Recognition of Merit from the Texas Medical Association, and receipt of the George T. Caldwell Award from the Texas Society of Pathologists.

Mother Joseph PariseauW
Mother Joseph Pariseau

Mother Joseph of the Sacred Heart, S.P., was a Canadian Religious Sister who led a group of the members of her congregation to the Pacific Northwest of the United States. There, under her leadership, they established a network of schools and healthcare to service the American settlers in that new and remote part of the country. She was the first female architect in British Columbia. For her contributions to the development of that region, she was honored by the State of Washington as one of the two people allowed to represent it in the National Statuary Hall Collection in Washington, D.C.

Cynthia Ann ParkerW
Cynthia Ann Parker

Cynthia Ann Parker, also known as Naduah, was an American who was kidnapped in 1836, around age 10, by a Comanche war band which had attacked her family's settlement. Her Comanche name means "someone found".

SacagaweaW
Sacagawea

Sacagawea was a Lemhi Shoshone woman who, at age 16, met and helped the Lewis and Clark Expedition in achieving their chartered mission objectives by exploring the Louisiana Territory. Sacagawea traveled with the expedition thousands of miles from North Dakota to the Pacific Ocean, helping to establish cultural contacts with Native American populations in addition to her contributions to natural history.

Mari SandozW
Mari Sandoz

Mari Susette Sandoz was a Nebraska novelist, biographer, lecturer, and teacher. She became one of the West's foremost writers, and wrote extensively about pioneer life and the Plains Indians. She received the Newbery Medal.

Fern SawyerW
Fern Sawyer

Fern Sawyer was an American cowgirl, rodeo champion, politician and inductee into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame and the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. She was the first woman to win the cutting horse competition at the 1945 Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo. Sawyer was also the first woman appointed to the New Mexico State Fair Board. She was well known for her "flashy attire," according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. She lived in Crossroads, Lovington, and Nogal, New Mexico. She was also a charter member of the National Cutting Horse Association and the first director of the Girls Rodeo Association.

Fannie Sperry SteeleW
Fannie Sperry Steele

Fannie Sperry Steele, born Fannie Sperry, was an American bronc rider and rodeo performer from Montana. She was one of the first women inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in 1975, and the first Montana native in the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1978.

Angelika TrabertW
Angelika Trabert

Dr. Angelika Trabert, is a German doctor and para-equestrian rider. She made her international debut in 1991, and went on to compete at five consecutive Summer Paralympics for her country, winning silver and bronze multiple medals. In addition, she was the 2009 European Champion in freestyle. Outside of the sport, she is an Anaesthetist who has worked internationally, including providing medical care in rural Africa.

Sheila VarianW
Sheila Varian

Sheila Varian was a breeder of Arabian horses who lived and worked at the Varian Arabians Ranch near Arroyo Grande, California. She grew up with a strong interest in horses, and was mentored in horsemanship by Mary "Sid" Spencer, a local rancher and Morgan horse breeder who also introduced Varian to the vaquero or "Californio" tradition of western riding. She started her horse ranch, Varian Arabians, in 1954 with the assistance of her parents. Raising and training horses was her full-time occupation beginning in 1963. She used vaquero-influenced methods of training horses, although she adapted her technique over the years to fit the character of the Arabian horse, which she viewed as a horse breed requiring a smart yet gentle approach.

Cindy WalkerW
Cindy Walker

Cindy Walker was an American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. As a songwriter Walker was responsible for many popular and enduring songs recorded by many different artists.

Hortense Sparks WardW
Hortense Sparks Ward

Hortense Sparks Ward was a pioneering Texas lawyer and women's rights activist.

Narcissa WhitmanW
Narcissa Whitman

Narcissa Prentiss Whitman was an American missionary in the Oregon Country of what would become the state of Washington. On their way to found the Protestant Whitman Mission in 1836 with her husband, Marcus, near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, she and Eliza Hart Spalding became the first documented European-American women to cross the Rocky Mountains.

Rose Wilder LaneW
Rose Wilder Lane

Rose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist and daughter of American writer Laura Ingalls Wilder. Along with two other female writers, Ayn Rand and Isabel Paterson, Lane is noted as one of the founders of the American libertarian movement.

Laura Ingalls WilderW
Laura Ingalls Wilder

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder was an American writer known for the Little House on the Prairie series of children's books, published between 1932 and 1943, which were based on her childhood in a settler and pioneer family.

Nellie Snyder YostW
Nellie Snyder Yost

Nellie Irene Snyder Yost was a historian and writer. She was an active member of the Nebraska State Historical Society, serving for many years as its president, and wrote 13 books and many articles on Nebraska history, including biographies of her father, her mother, and Buffalo Bill Cody.