National Cowgirl Museum: Women Who Rode the West

The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame was founded in nineteen seventy-five in Hereford, Texas, in the heart of the Panhandle cattle country, before moving to Fort Worth in nineteen ninety-four and opening its Cultural District building in two thousand two. Its mission is honoring women who shaped the American West through extraordinary courage and grit. Inductees span rodeo champions like Tad Lucas and Prairie Rose Henderson, ranchers, Native American leaders, artists, and writers including Georgia O'Keeffe and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The museum holds a rare photography collection and research library documenting generations of women whose stories were long overshadowed by the male-centered mythology of the frontier. It adds honorees annually, building a record that keeps expanding the definition of what it meant to ride, work, and survive in the West.