The Active Historian

*Parts of this blog post were originally written for the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum blog series “Breaking Trail.”

When you think of iconic cowgirls who comes to mind? I think of cowgirls like Tad Lucas, Mabel Strickland, Lorena Trickey and Bonnie McCarroll! Today, we’re going to explore the life of Bonnie McCaroll. 

Mary Ellen “Bonnie” Treadwell was born in Boise, Idaho in 1897 on her grandparent’s ranch. She grew up surrounded by horses and the Western lifestyle. She began riding horses early in her life and rode “buckers” by the time she was 10 years old.

In 1915, she entered her first rodeo in Vancouver, Washington. 

Bonnie met and married her husband, Frank McCarroll in 1915. They were both very successful on the rodeo circuit in the 1910s and 1920s.

Pictured below, you will see Bonnie and Frank McCarroll with Tad Lucas!

Bonnie competed in saddle bronc riding, steer riding and trick riding. And boy was she good at it! She won several rodeos and roundups. Keep in mind that she was riding against some of the best rodeo women like Mabel Strickland, Tad Lucas and Vera McGinnis, to name only few.

Bonnie began competing annually at the Pendleton Roundup in 1915 and won the saddle bronc title back-to-back in 1921 and 1922.

In 1915, Walter S. Bowman captured an iconic image of Bonnie riding a bronc named Silver at the Pendleton Round-Up. When I think of iconic rodeo photographs, this image immediately comes to mind! In the image below, Bonnie has been thrown and is flying in the air while Silver is reared up with only his back hooves on the ground.

Bonnie became the first woman to win the bronc riding championship held at Madison Square Garden. In 1922, she accomplished something no other cowgirl had ever done before – she won the bronc riding championship at Madison Square Garden and Cheyenne Frontier Days in the same year. This was a HUGE accomplishment!

In 1924, she performed at Tex Austin’s International Rodeo at London’s Wembley Stadium. This was the first international rodeo championship in England. Bonnie won the Lord Selfridge Trophy as the “Champion Lady Saddle-bronc Rider.”

In 1929, Bonnie was competing at the Pendleton Roundup on a bronc named Black Cat when she sustained a major injury. She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she received medical attention. Tragically, she passed away eleven days later.

Women were soon banned from competing in rough stock events because it was deemed too dangerous. Rodeo officials decided there needed to be more regulations for women in rodeo competition.

Many years later, Bonnie McCarroll was inducted into the National Rodeo Hall of Fame (2002) and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame (2006).

Bonnie McCarroll at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

You can see some of Bonnie McCaroll’s things on display in the American Rodeo Gallery at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.

In the Vault at the NCWHM

There are a few more of Bonnie’s personal items in the vault at The Cowboy! A few years ago, there was a sheepskin on display with a commemorative rodeo drawing of Bonnie and Frank McCarroll, Tex Austin and more on exhibit. This piece was created in 1924 and is brightly colored with Bonnie sitting in the middle holding the Lord Selfridge Trophy. All of the other surrounding pictures were much smaller. You can see the piece below! It is titled, “Bonnie & Frank McCarroll/Champion Bulldogger and International/Champion Ladie [sic] Bronk Rider” and was created by Francis Harden Steele.

*This piece is no longer on exhibit as the material needed to rest. I took this photo back in 2019. You can see a professional photo of this piece in Richard Rattenbury’s book, “Arena Legacy: The Heritage of American Rodeo” on page 316-317.

In the bottom on the photo above, you can see the top of the Lord Selfridge Rodeo Cup. I am so sad that I cut it out of this photo so many years ago… I believe this is the cup pictured in the newspaper photos above from 1924!

Concluding Thoughts

Bonnie McCarroll’s story is one of grit and determination and she helped pave the way for many women in rodeo. Her story will always be one of my favorites! I hope you enjoyed learning about this cowgirl, and I look forward to seeing you further down the trail!

I’ll talk to ya soon!

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Sources

“Arena Legacy: The Heritage of American Rodeo” by Richard C. Rattenbury. [Pages – 59, 66, 159, 171, 316-317, 158, 198, 105, 326, 328, 356]

Websites

“Bonnie McCarroll,” National Cowgirl Museum & Hall of Fame.

“Bonnie McCarroll,” National Rodeo Hall of Fame, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

“McCarroll Rodeo Photographs,” National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

The American Rodeo Gallery at The Cowboy

“Bonnie McCarroll” panel, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Rodeo Gallery. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

“Frank McCarroll” panel, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Rodeo Gallery. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Bonnie McCarroll / 1915 / Pendelton Round Up. Ann Ayres, 2008. Rodeo Historical Society Purchase. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. 2008.09.

Ladies’ Bronc Riding Saddle. O.J. Snyder Saddlery, c. 1925. National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. 83.5.4. 

Newspapers

“Bonnie McCarroll Thrown From A Bucker.” East Oregonian (Pendleton, OR) September 21, 1916.

“Wild West Shows How It Is Done.” Seattle Union Record (Seattle, WA) November 9, 1922.

“Picture Section.” New York Times (New York, NY), November 12, 1922.

“The Leader’s Pictorial Page.” The Leader-Post (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), November 14, 1922.

“The Camera Men Are Thankful That This Day’s Work Is Done.” Des Moines Tribune (Des Moines, IA), November 30, 1922.

“Happy Rodeo Trio.” Evening Dispatch (Birmingham, West Midlands, England) June 7, 1924.

“A Full Page of Pictures from All Over the World Daily for ‘News’ Readers.” The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY), July 24, 1924.

“Bonnie McCarroll As Bronco Buster Leads Her Sex.” The Republican (Springfield, MA), July 28, 1924.

“London Rodeo’s Champion Woman Bronc Rider Arrives in Joplin for the Roundup.” Joplin Globe (Joplin, MO), July 30, 1924.

“Picture Section.” The Springfield Daily Republican (Springfield, MA), November 2, 1924.

“Boise’s Champion Rodeo Performers.” The Idaho Statesman (Boise, ID) December 7, 1924.

“Three Champions.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), December 11, 1924.

“Back to Cow-Punching?” The Macon News (Macon, GA), January 18, 1925.

“Woman Broncho Rider Dies,” The Garden City News (Garden City, KS), October 3, 1929. 

*All newspaper clippings in this blog post were pulled from newspapers.com. I am not affiliated with this website. I just wanted to let you know where I found my digitized sources.