Show I 1 rv aj iab I 1 t iq R w A W released nI aed by western newspaper Nw paper union the original cogg cowgirl an automobile accident WHEN resulted in tho the death of lucille Mul liall near the town of mulhall okla aklai recently it snapped another link with the old west for she was the original cowgirl 10 the first of that tribe of daring young women who risk their necks riding bucking bron bronco coes cs and roping steers or calves dut but unlike many anany of the synthetic cowgirls you see nt at the rodeos or in circuses today lucille was authentic silo she was the dau ahter of col zach Mul mulhall liall a pioneer of oklahoma whose ranch on beaver creek once comprised moro more than acres while she was still a little girl her father offered to give her every yearling she sha could rope ropa and brand by herself but he soon begged oil off on his bargain when he noticed how many of his steers were wearing the brand of L M when she ehe was 14 she was the star attraction at the reunion of roose belts rough riders in oklahoma city in 1000 there she matched her T liw L lucille in 1916 skill as 03 a rider and roper raper against some eoma of the best cowboys in the southwest and held her own with them four years later at the cat tle meds merill convention in fort worth texas she did even better when she entered the steer roping contest queen of the range 1 each contestant drew three steers by lot miss mulhall got two big tough ones at the start sho she roped and tied the first one in I 1 minute and 45 seconds she cut that time down to I 1 minute and 11 seconds with her second steer and she dropped her third one in the remarkable uma time of 40 seconds her total time for the tha three was 3 minutes and 36 seconds which was several seconds faster than her nearest cowboy competitor so they hailed balled the slight girl sho she weighed less than pounds queen of the range and awarded her the championship gold fold medal valued at 1000 just juat to provo that her victory at fort worth was no fluke she entered a steer roping contest at mcalester okla in 1003 1903 and roped and tied three steers in 30 40 and 40 seconds from that time on lucille mulhall was the sensation of every contest which she 2014 mah entered and her ra room in the blk ranch house wad filled with her trophies she was the star of the wild west show which colonel mulhall organized and took to the worlds fair in st louis in 1904 when wa it t T n i bowed zach in M madi son on square garden in new york city the next year the eastern papers and magazines waxed lyrical over her and printed pages about the best beat horsewoman in america I 1 A trail boss boas another of her feats tor for which she became famous came about in this way colonel mulhall had bought a herd of steers down in the texas panhandle but was too busy to go down there and drive them back to his ranch so lucille mulhall proposed that she and her sister mildred take taka on the job they took a few cowboys with them but luclie was the boss of the outfit and under her direction the steers were driven over the mile trail through bad weather without suffering the loss of a single steer when they buried her in the family plot on the Mul mulhall liall ranch an old timer war wab heard to remark cowgirls and cowboys might live longer it if they stuck to horses perhaps he was wai thinking of the fact that tom mix who had once worked n the mulhall ranch had been killed in an automobile accident in arizona a few months earlier and that will rogers who had also been a mulhall ranch cowboy and a rider and roper in colonel zach wild west show had lost his life in an in aliska alaska |