NEAR the town of Mulhall, Oklahoma, which was named for him - a little distance north of Guthrie, the old territorial capital - is a sepulchre alongside the highway where the reamins of Zach Mulhall have rested for many years. It is on the old Mulhall ranch. The other day near it his daughter, Lucille Mulhall, lost her life in a motor car accident. Her death closes one of the really vivid chapters in the history of the West.

Col. Zach Mulhall was among the first frontiersmen to sense that there was a show side to riding a bucking bronco and roping a steer. The Kingman County (Kansas) Cattlemen's Association is probably entitled to the credit of initiating their rodeo as a distinct form of entertainment, but Mulhall fashioned the idea into a performance of major proportions and tried it out in Saint Louis at the turn of the century.

There Lucille Mulhall helped put the idea across with her skill. There Will Rogers tried out the rope as a public attraction that was to lead him on to fame and fortune. There more than one hard-riding movie star got his inspiration for a screen career.

Lucille Mulhall, famed as the "first cowgirl of the stage," and termed the "world's best horsewoman" by President Theodore Roosevelt when he saw her perform at a reunion of his Rough Riders, had a leading part in establishing a form of entertainment which has become a custom.