Women-in-History Facts

Kate Shelley was a teenager when an 1881 storm collapsed a trestle near her Iowa home. A passenger train with 200 people aboard was still coming. She crawled across a flooded railroad bridge on her hands and knees, lantern blown out. She reached the depot in time to stop the train. Railroads gave her a lifetime pass and a Tiffany medal. Today, Union Pacific trains still cross the bridge that bears her name.

A Texas ranch wife helped save the American bison. By 1878, hide hunters had nearly wiped out the southern herd. Mary Ann Goodnight urged her husband Charles to rescue a few orphaned calves. Those calves started one of five herds that seeded nearly every bison in North America. Their descendants still roam Caprock Canyons State Park, right through the campground.