nav bar



LUCILLE MULHALL, QUEEN OF BRONCO BUSTERS
Inter-Ocean Sun, 15 May 1910


Busting bronchos, throwing the lariat and typing up a steer with the skill of a cowboy, Miss Lucille Mulhall, the 22-year-old daughter of Colonel Zach Mulhall, proprieter of the Mulhall ranch at Mulhall, OK, whose wild West show is entertaining throngs at the coliseum, is one of the most wonderful young women of the age.

Out in Oklahoma people think Lucille Mulhall the most wonderful girl in the world. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt has told them so and they credit him with knowing a whole lot, especially when it comes to hunting and horses, and she had been along with her father when he had accompanied the ex-President on several hunting trips.

Miss Mulhall is a real daughter of Oklahoma. Upon the broad, far=reaching plains that swell and undulate like the waves of the sea there is not a horse so wild that she may not bring it under almost immediate subjection. Likewise is she the daughter of Zach Mulhall, who, before he launched into the wild West show business, was general live stock agent of the Rock Island-Frisco system.

It was Zack Mulhall who conceived the idea of loading the tens of thousands of cattle that are annually brought from Texas, Colorado and the intervening country to the great abattoirs of Chicago, in palace cars that are sent across the country at express time speed. And it was Zack Mulhall who was one of the first white men to see the undeveloped wealth of the fertile prairies, then peopled only by Indians, which, when opened to white settlers a dozen years ago, blossomed with farms and towns like things of magical creation.

Oklahoma City and Guthrie, two of these towns, have more than 50,000 inhabitants and many metropolitan aspects, and there are dozens of towns of smaller size. Zack Mulhall, as one of the general officers of the great railway system, had to have his office in St. Louis, but his home is upon a ranch in the center of Oklahoma. Naturally it is a model one. Thousands of his own cattle graze upon his multi-acred fields.

Lucille Mulhall is a product of Oklahoma. She was almost cradled in the saddle. Scarcely a day after she was able to toddle on her tiny feet she could balance herself upon the back of a horse. And as she grew up, when she was not at her school desk she was in her saddle.

Zack Mulhall objected to his daughter's appearance with a circus or wild West show at such a tender age, but he agreed to allow her to sign a contract with a vaudeville syndicate. She came to Chicago and then went East accompanied by her brother Charley and a neighbor's son, Van Bergen, who is now known as the "baritone cowboy." Later her younger sister Mildred, who is a graceful equestrianne, and her elder sister Georie joined the party and together they toured the country.

So successful was her vaudeville performance that Colonel Mulhall decided to organize his own wild West show with Miss Lucille as the star attraction. Miss Mulhall is a slender slip of a girl, who surprises her hearers when she says she is 22 years old. Sixteen would sound more like the truth. She is a blonde, natural, quite tall. Her face is baby like with its small features and infantile expression. She knows nothing about making up and appears with her complexion as natural as nature has painted it without the use of pigments of man's making.

"Don't yhou find the long skirt you wear very cumbersom in riding?" she was asked.

"No, sir," was her simple reply. "Why, I don't believe I have ever thought about that. I have always worn long skirts ever since I was old enough to. I have seen most "cowgirls" wear short skirts in wild West shows, but out in my part of the country the young women all wear long skirts. I am not trying to give a wild West show. Just simply endeavoring to show the public how we train horses, throw the lariat and handle ropes. I want my exhibition to be real and short skirts are not natural on a ranch girl."

"But you ride astride, Miss Mulhall."

"Yes, I have never rode in any other way. Of course, we wear divided skirts. We have to. All the girls I know ride astride, as it is the only sensible way for a woman to ride. I think it is the most unnatural thing in the world for a woman to ride sideways. It is so injurious, as well as awkward and unsafe. The few girls I have known who ride in side saddles become perfect freaks by the way in which they develop the right side."

"I notice, Miss Mulhall, that you cinch your bucker up to your saddle horn and then blind himn with your arms and hold the tip of his left ear between your teeth while he is being saddled. I have seen hundreds of buckers blinded for saddling, but never saw it done in that manner before."

"I guess it is just my own way of doing it," was her reply. "They always keep quiet while I am holding them that way, and I have never found it dangerous, although everybody thinks it is. He knows I will nip his ears if he gets fractious, and that holds him all right."

This was said as simply as if she were telling how easily she might pin a bow of ribbon in her hair, although her performances at the Coliseum make those who are more or less familiar with the insane vagaries of bucking horses shudder as they watch her doing it.

The show will continue all this week at the Coliseum and reveals several features that are entirely new in wild West productions. One or the other of the five Mulhalls are always in the arena and there is something of a dashing, daring order to make the spectators sit up and take notice during the entire show.






nav bar
NAVIGATION

GREATGRANDFATHER: ZACK MULHALL:
  Photos and Stories       Genealogy       Timeline  

GRANDFATHER: JAMES HOMER BUTRIDGE:
  Index,     Butridge Genealogy,  

GRANDMOTHER: JENNIE AUDRY BUTRIDGE:
  Index,     Art Book,  

FATHER: BRADLEY VAN DEUSEN:
  Index,   Old Soldiers' Drums,   All Poetry,   Letters

MOTHER: JEAN AUDREY BUTRIDGE:
  Index,     Art,     Writing,     High School,  

ME:
Home,   Family,   Favorite Pages,   Site Map


IME logo Copyright © 2014, Mary S. Van Deusen