Glenns Ferry, Idaho
Home Of The Three Island Crossing

Miss Kitty Wilkins

There are many articles written about Miss Kitty and of her skill in raising and selling horses. The earliest to be found among the keepsakes of Mrs. John Wilkins, now in the possession of Elville Wilkins, was dated June 26, 1891, from the Sioux City Journal of Sioux City, Iowa. This item is copied in full with the headlines as they originally appeared.

Horses Are Her Delight

They Also Furnish Her a First-Class Vocation

Miss Wilkins – Horsewoman

A Pleasant And Bright Young Lady Who Is Extensively Engaged In The Horse Business- How She Got Her Start.

Now In Sioux City

The name of one of the most remarkable, woman in the West was found scrawled on the register at the Hotel Garretson yesterday.  It was that of Miss Kitty C. Wilkins, of Idaho, but that young person is in no measure responsible for the chirography, it was written by the clerk. Miss Kitty Wilkins enjoys the distinction of being the only female in the United Stats whole sole occupation is horse-dealing. She is in Sioux City in pursuit of her regular business, having brought in a large number of horses which are now on sale at the Union Stockyards.

“How do the westerners designate you, Miss Wilkins? With their usual fund of pseudonyms, they must surly have found one for you.”

     “I have been referred to as the cattle queen,” she said, “but this is incorrect; The Wilkins Company of Idaho own both horses and cattle, and this is how the mistake originated, but my own specialty is horses. I now own between 700 and 800 of my own. They are Percherons, Morgans, Normans, and Hambletonians and so on. I have no native Oregon or Spanish horses at all. Besides these I now have, if you will excuse my speaking in the first person singular, I have sold a great many hundred; I could not begin to tell how many.

“Do I like living away out Idaho? Oh, so much! I go out to roundups in the spring and fall and enjoy myself ever so much. It is a fascinating business and grows upon you.

“It was real romantic, the way I got my start. The way of it was this. Over twenty years ago my parents had removed to Oregon and were returning to San Francisco, when our friends gathered round to give us mementoes of various sorts

When they got to me they said, ‘Well, now, she’s only a little thing- I was but 2 years old then- we’ll just give her some money to be invested for her.’ Two of them gave me a $20 gold piece each. Shortly after returning my father concluded to go to Idaho and engage in stock business. He went to Oregon and bought a lot of horses. When he went to pay over the money he be-thought him of my $40, and seeing a fine little filly yet left offered the $40 for her. The owner valued her at $80, but seeing that my father was taking the others, he finally concluded to let this one go, even if it was for less than she was worth. From the increase all my bands have come. Of course I could tell you of many ups and downs for it was not always smooth sailing back there in those early days, as I grew up from childhood, but I need not enlarge upon this. At length I went to San Jose to school, put in three or four years, and in addition traveled considerably in America, seeing all the large cities and many of the great national curiosities.

“But when I got back to Idaho I was so lonesome I didn’t know what to do. I used to say to my mother then,  the only man I cared anything about was the man in the moon.

“I got over being so lonesome, though, in a little time, and now I am already homesick to get back. As I said, the stock business is very fascinating, and horses are very profitable, more so than cattle. A 3 or 4 year steer, for instance, is worth but $20, while a horse of the same age is worth $85 or $100 anyhow. Another thing, horses are much more easily raised and do not require half the care. They paw away the snow and get at the grass much better than cattle. Last year the average loss of cattle in Idaho was 50 per cent. Some owners lost 100 per cent, or all they had.

“Although our home and many of our corrals and buildings are on the Bruneau River, fifty miles southeast of Boise City, and twenty-two south of Mountain Home, the station on the Oregon Short Line, our range is seventy-five miles away. It is what is known as the ’71 range, and it is there that many cattle and horse owners gather twice a year to sort out and brand. I go out there every year and look on and see how the stock is coming in. I ride a great deal, but don’t take part in the roundup. As many as forty men are oftentimes out rounding up and cutting out stock there during the season and things are very lively.

“I shoot a good deal; that is, I am a good shot, but I don’t often go hunting, although there is lots of fine game.”

Miss Wilkins discussed in an entertaining way Miss Morgon, the eminent lady writer on blood cattle and horses, whose letters in eastern journals have attracted attention. Miss Wilkins said she knew no reason why the judgment of women should not be as good as that of men if they gave the subject attention.

The next item comes from an article written on October 10, 1895, of which only a portion is given

Horse Queen Of The West

Kate C. Wilkins, Famous Ranch-Owner Of Idaho, Is In Town

Came To Sell 3,000 Horses

Reared On The Plains, But was Educated In A Convent AND IS A Cultured And Handsome Woman

Miss Kate C. Wilkins, known over the entire West as the Idaho Horse Queen, is stopping at the National Hotel, East ST. Louis. She is here for the purpose of selling 3,000 head of horses, the product of her ranch, during the past year.

A post-Dispatch reporter called upon Miss Wilkins at the National Hotel and found her engaged in the business-like occupation of writing letters. Having heard of “Kittie” Wilkins as a woman who managed her own ranch and marketed its product, the reporter was hardly prepared to meet the tall young woman, dressed in a swell, tailor made costume, her blonde curls surmounted by a dainty Parisian creation, who greeted him with perfect self-possession and invited him to be seated. One might be excused for imagining that Western ranch life would coarsen any woman, no matter what het natural tendencies might be, but one glimpse of Miss Wilkins is enough to completely dissipate the idea. She is a strikingly attractive woman….”We children were all born on the ranch and grew up in the midst of the wild environment that then existed, and still exists in a measure in that locality. My brothers taught me to rider and shoot, that being a necessary part of a woman’s education out there in those days and I soon rivaled them in expertness. My father had, from a small beginning, accumulated a large herd of horses and on one of his trips to market he took me along. After that I always accompanied him and in a few years he said I could sell horses better than he….. At present we have over 4,000 head on the ranch, divided into several herds according to their grade. They run wild winter and summer. Of late years we have been improving our stock very much by introducing imported stallions, and now I think that I bring the best stock to market that comes from the West. I never ship a blemished animal from the ranch. They are all sound when they leave there.

Another clipping, from Sioux City, Iowa, paper in 1898, adds to the praise of this unique businesswoman

Miss Kitty Wilkins left Sioux City the first week of January for her home at Mountain Home, Idaho, where she will make preparations for taking a consignment of her famous Diamond brand horses to the Alaskan gold fields in the spring. She expects to start some time in March, and will go direct to Dawson City, and if she makes successful disposition of her horses she will stay and invest in mines. Miss Wilkins possesses the rugged nature for such an undertaking. Inured to a life on the plain since childhood, she is possessed of strength and agility that is wonderful for a woman. She can mount her pony from the ground and cast a “riata” as well as any of the numerous cowboys in her employ. She is an excellent shot with either a pistol or rifle, and has plenty of nerve to back her up. She is thus equipped to join the hardy Argonauts who are seeking fortunes in the new Eldorado, and under every condition which she will be able to take care of herself.

Many are the pioneers who remember Idaho’s Horse Queen and just as numerous are the stories told of her life on the ranges in Owyhee and Elmore counties. She took care of the shipments and sometimes loaded as many as twenty-six stock cars at one time from the Mountain Home Stockyards, says Frank Wilcox, who was then station agent for the Union Pacific Railroad. She often did her own auctioneering at the unloading point, Omaha, Chicago, St. Louis, Sioux City, or other Eastern center. She had a special tailor who made her clothes for riding sidesaddle, where she was perfectly at home.

Her picture and her saddle are on display at the Historical Museum in Boise where all may inspect them.

She passed away at her home in Glenns Ferry three weeks after her brother John died, in late September of the year 1935

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Last modified: July 07, 2010