Stroke Of Luck Saves Cheyenne Frontier Days Cowgirl Sculpture From Devastating Fire

It’s only by a stroke of luck that the unveiling for Cheyenne Frontier Days a new sculpture recognizing 2024 as the Year of the Cowgirl got to go ahead as planned.

That’s because almost all of the bronze sculptures poured by the Caleco Foundry in Cody were destroyed by fire last month. This particular piece was one of a handful that just happened to be outside at the time.

D. Michael Thomas, the artist who created “How ’Bout Them Cowgirls,” told Cowboy State Daily he lost 40 or so molds, collectively worth millions of dollars. That’s taken the heart right out of his work as an artist since many of those molds had not yet reached the end of their shelf life.

But he is particularly glad that his Year of the Cowgirl work wasn’t among the losses.

This statue is particularly special to him because of the model he used for her face and figure.

“She’s a likeness of my mother,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “And she was raised in Jackson in the ’30s. She was a pretty woman, so I thought, ‘You know what, I’m just gonna use her as my model.’”

Thomas worked particularly hard on the statue’s face. It was important that be not just good, but perfect.

“When I sent my sister the final look of her face, she started crying,” he said. “So, I know I did my job.”

The cowgirl wears a split skirt with conchos and a kidney belt, typical of the 1920s style. There’s a large hat and ornate boots, too, as the she sits suspended in the air on top of a perpetual, sun-fishing bronc.

The horse carries two brands, one a diamond tail on its left hip and the other a 7XL on its left jaw. Both brands belong to Doug and Susan Samuelson, who funded the sculpture, along with Peaches and Brian Tyrell.

“They are great supporters of all things Cheyenne,” Harvey Deselms told Cowboy State Daily. “And this is a wonderful addition to all the bronzes that we have in Cheyenne.”

Deselms has helped bring about more than 60 bronze sculptures in and around Wyoming’s Capitol. He was among the many supporters cheering the unveiling of the Year of the Cowgirl statue on Friday at Frontier Park in its new home right across from the Chris LeDoux statue.

The two statues will frame a new walkway that’s planned from F.E. Warren Air Force Base over the interstate, leading straight into Cheyenne Frontier Days’ Frontier Park.

Ride Like A Girl

While Thomas put 1920s clothing on his cowgirl statue, women have been riding in Cheyenne Frontier Days for a lot longer than that.

The first year of Cheyenne Frontier Days had no events for women, but that was an oversight rectified the very next year with a women’s horse race.

The cowgirl who really made the world stand up and take notice, though, was Bertha Kaepernik.

The Ohio-born girl grew up on a ranch in Colorado and had been riding horses since the age of 5.

At the age of 21, she arrived at Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1904. She’d seen a promotional gimmick advertising Ladies Bronc Riding.

The organizers had not really expected any takers, but when the field turned into a muddy mess that no cowboy wanted to try, Kaepernik insisted they bring her a horse so the cowgirl could show them how rough riding is done.

More than 15,000 people were in the stands hoping for a show, particularly as newspapers of the day had been writing stories about women like Bertha riding rough stock with the boys.

And Kaepernik was not going to disappoint them.

Up until then, cowgirls had ridden in Wild West exhibition shows, but none had broken into any of the big rodeos for bronc busting rides.

Kaepernik was determined to change that, and change it she did.

Unlike most women of the day, she rode her prairie roan “slick,” meaning her stirrups were free and unhobbled, just like her daddy had taught her on the ranch.

That probably saved her life. When the roan slipped and lost its footing, somersaulting onto its back in the mud, she was able to kick herself off.

She gave the bronc a moment to right itself, then climbed right back on. In those days, cowboys — or in this case a cowgirl — rode a horse until they were either thrown off or the horse came to a standstill. This horse was not standing still yet, but Kaepernik was determined to ride until it was.

After her successful ride, no self-respecting cowboy at the event was going to refuse to ride. They couldn’t let anyone say a cowgirl was braver than a cowboy.

Busting Broncs Around The World

Kaepernik’s ride was the first recorded ladies bronc busting ride in the world.

She would go on to compete in many other rodeos after her Cheyenne Frontier Days debut in 1904, and had few peers in the world of rodeo.

She was bucking champion at Oregon’s Pendleton Roundup in 1911, 1912 and 1914. She set a world record in the Roman Race at Pendleton and set records as a female Roman rider at the Washington Rodeo in Walla Walla.

She continued to compete until 1919 before retiring to become a guide in Yosemite National Park. But she still occasionally served in California rodeos as a “pickup man.”

Cheyenne Frontier Days, meanwhile, made Ladies Bronc Riding an official event two years after Kaepernik’s appearance.

Several other rodeos soon followed suit, and by 1916, 20 rodeos had women’s events.

Keapernik’s wild ride in a muddy field in the Equality State had opened doors for lots of other cowgirls to come out and show what they could do at Cheyenne Frontier Days and beyond.

“We really have had so many fantastic cowgirls,” Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum Curator Mike Kassel told Cowboy State Daily. “We have Kaepernic, the first woman to ride saddle broncs in recorded history.

“We have Mable Strickland, we had Josephine Wicks. We had all these really fantastic cowgirls, and they were amazing competitors and performers at CFD during the Golden Age of the Cowgirl, which is from about 1900 to 1930.”

There are also mysterious cowgirls like Prairie Rose Henderson, who may have been more than one woman.

“She wandered out in a blizzard and disappeared,” Kassel said.

Later, she was identified by her championship buckle, although there were questions about that since buckles didn’t come along until much later in the 1960s.

“That story is kind of a sidebar to the significance of the women who involved themselves at Cheyenne Frontier Days, like Kaepernik,” Kassel said. “But we have modern women breaking glass ceilings, too, just as these ladies did while they were doing their performances.”

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.