By Kay Turnbaugh

The Last of the Wild West Cowgirls

A True Story

She never shot a husband who didn’t deserve it…

A small band of Wild West cowgirls rode into stardom around the turn of the 20th century. At a time when women were discouraged from working outside the home or exercising, the Wild West cowgirls became fabulously popular stars who drew huge audiences and fans. Women around the world admired them for their audacity to lead lives outside the norm. They are some of history’s forgotten women.

Goldie Griffith was one of that group of early professional female athletes. She performed tricks and rode bucking broncos for Buffalo Bill, the most famous showman of the time. At the age of 19, she was married during one of his Wild West shows at Madison Square Garden before a crowd of 8,000 whistling and stomping fans. A few years later, she discovered that her cowboy husband had already been married when they wed, and she pulled out her gun…

A WILLA Literary Award finalist for creative non-fiction.

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Award-Winning Author

Kay Turnbaugh

I am the author of seven books, including the Willa literary award-winning The Last of the Wild West Cowgirls. I live in a small town in the mountains of Colorado with my husband and scores of wandering wildlife…more

Other Books

Around Nederland

An Images of America history of Nederland and the surrounding mountain area.

Following in Their Footsteps

History of trails in the northern Front Range of Colorado.

Dining Room Girl

Letters from a girl working at the Horseshoe Inn in Rocky Mountain National Park in the summer of 1926.

Ski Touring Routes

A guide to routes on Colorado’s Front Range.

All Books

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You can taste the dust in Goldie’s mouth, feel the sweat dribbling down her chest and smell the corral, the horse energy….The book puts one into the center of the struggles of a traveling show…it’s an historic gem that was just waiting to be written.

– Barbara Lawlor, The Mountain-Ear

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After I started reading it, I could not put it down except to sleep a few hours…as a western historian, I could not believe that I had never heard of Goldie Griffith Cameron…she certainly deserves to be recognized as more than a bit player in the overall story of the West in times past.

– Alvin Davis, Historian

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Sit back and read about Goldie’s life, truly The Last of the Wild West Cowgirls. The experiences Goldie had in show business and ranching will keep you turning pages until you finish the book and wish there were more.

– Gail Woerner, Rodeo Historian

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