Cowboy girl lives one-of-a-kind life

There was nobody quite like Caroline Lockhart. Rancher, novelist, journalist, newspaper publisher and one of the organizers of the Cody Stampede, Lockhart lived most of her long life in Wyoming and Montana. When Red Lodge writer John Clayton stumbled onto her ranch near the Bighorn Canyon more than a decade ago, he was surprised that he had never heard of the woman who was known across the country during her lifetime. Clayton began researching her life, turning what he found into a 2007 book, “The Cowboy Girl: The Life of Caroline Lockhart,” published by the University of Nebraska Press. Raised in Kansas, Lockhart grew into a superb horsewoman. From the start she was smart, willful and independent — talents that she put to good use after her father cut her off financially when she finished school. After a brief stint as an actress, Lockhart started a career as a “stunt girl” journalist on East Coast newspapers where she would engage in an activity — sometimes in disguise — and then write about it. Lockhart came to Montana in 1901 to write about what would become Glacier National Park. She traveled unchaperoned with a guide from the east side of the mountains over the divide to Lake McDonald. That wasn’t the first or last time she ignored societal norms about what a proper single woman should or shouldn’t do. She came to Cody, Wyo., in 1904 because of her acquaintance with William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, she would later say. More likely, Clayton writes that Lockhart was trailing one of her boyfriends. Lockhart would be in and out of Cody for the rest of her life, spending long stretches at her ranch, continuing to write for publications around the country and publishing seven Western-themed novels...more