Cowgirl Fashion–Lucille Mulhall

Lucille Mulhall ropes and ties a steer while wearing skirts.

While she was performing she wore what the other woman rodeo riders of her era wore…split riding skirt, blouse, silk scarf and large, felt cowboy hat. It apparently didn’t cramp her style.

At a Texas roping contest in 1904, Lucille Mulhall, an 18-year-old Oklahoma girl, lassoed and tied three steers in three minutes and 36 seconds — several seconds better than the best cowboys — and won a gold medal and a $10,000 prize for a world record.

When she went to New York the next year for an appearance at Madison Square Garden, newspaper reporters referred to her as “female conqueror of beef and horn,” “lassoer in lingerie,” “cowboy girl” and “ranch queen.”  She is often referred to as the first cowgirl (although William Cody had used the term for Annie Oakley in the late 1800s.)

The New York Times described her as “Slight of figure, refined and neat in appearance, attired in a becoming riding habit for hard riding, wearing a picturesque Mexican sombrero and holding in one hand a lariat of the finest cowhide, Lucille Mulhall comes forward to show what an 18-year-old girl can do in roping steers.”