Rose Dunn: Maligned Woman

She was called the "Rose of the Cimarron" due to her love of riding around the river of that name. One of the advantages of life in the west was the tendency to allow more freedom to girls on farms and ranches. Many a daughter or wife could ride, shoot and run a spread with the same ease as her male counterparts. 

Rose  Dunn was born in about 1879 and was the youngest of ten, daughter of William H. Dunn and Sarah C. Brenner Dunn. Several of her brothers were considered some of the worst outlaws of early day Oklahoma by U.S. Deputy Marshal Charles F. Colcord.She died in 1955 in the Pacific Northwest.

One of the Western Advantages was more freedom

Several of her brothers ran as a gang and had dealings with both the law and the outlaws (the Doolin and Dalton gangs) in the wild 1890's.  This was not a rare thing in those wild and woolly days (see Wyatt Earp's story).

She and her brothers lived around Ingalls. The father had died and the widow Dunn married a pharmacist, Dr. Call, and they resided in Ingalls. The large family had migrated down from Kansas. Another source claims that Bill, and some of his brothers, were working one of the big cattle spreads in the region pre-Land Run.  Whichever was the case when the Land was set to be opened for settlement via the 1889 Land Run, the U.S. President ordered all the cattle combines and spreads to vacate.  That meant 'pink slips' for the cowboys. Many went west and northwest and some to Texas or New Mexico. Some stayed put and became the core group of little known and noted outlaws of the badlands in and around Oklahoma and Indian Territories.

Ingalls would be the site of a notorious gun battle between outlaws and U.S. Marshals, leaving several dead and forever marking the town and the people involved in the pages of western historical lore.

The legend states that Rose,  in her teen or early adult years, became infatuated with one of the members of the gang her brothers hung with - George "BitterCreek" Newcomb. It was time when everyone had a nickname or outlaw label. In the early 1890's Rose was an almost mascot of the group, with most thinking highly of her for her looks or her spirit or her kindness to them. 

During the 'Ingalls Gunfight battle', September 1, 1893, she is said to have faced flying bullets to take a replacement Winchester to her idol Newcomb.

Nice Story but this was not true. In 1893 she was a fourteen year old with a lot of older brothers. Newcomb was 27 at the time of the Battle of Ingals. It was known he went to the town - but he apparently had a girlfriend who was part of a local gambling room and brothel.

Reasons Why Rose Was Not Newcomb's Girlfriend and Had No Role at the Battle of Ingalls:

1) The newspapers following the battle filled columns of front pages across the region. Such a strange and daring episode as a woman evading bullets to bring her outlaw lover ammunition would have been noted and talked about. The drama, the scandal!
2) Most of the accounts about Rose, the battle and the people in Ingalls appear to have been derived from much later, and more salacious, accounts of the time. Early western writers in the pulp book heyday sold books based as much on the titillation factor as the gunfights and horse chases. History, written by men, often portrays women as being just as bad as they wish women were!
3) The story, according to several sources, emerged from the companion book to a photoplay produced in part by one time U.S. Marshall Bill Tilghman. "Passing of the Oklahoma Oklahomas" was a 'historic photo drama' showing the playbills read the outlaw careers of 'Bill Doolin, Bill Dalton, Al Jennings, Henry Starr, Rose of the Cimmarron, the Girl who Loved An Outlaw. Film version of Oklahoma's pioneer days 'Facts - Not fiction'.  Capt. Lute Stover of Iola, Kansas, a writer, was hired to write the scriopt and later added a companion booklet. He added 'more romance and  drama' in the booklet.
4) Many of the life stories on which the 'facts' were based in subsequent tellings of the old days fell victim to corrupted memories, confusion of dates and names, and sometimes a few fibs. Even famous U.S. Marshall's on more than one occasion made statements newspaper accounts and records of the time clearly contradict.
5) In the time period of this lavish love affair between a 14 year old and a 27 year old hardened criminal there were floating around numerous women more suited to the role. Newcomb was shot down in 1895 - paying for his sins.
6) In that 1893-1896 time were the following women: the unnamed prostitutes of  Ingalls, including one named Madam (variously Sadie McClaskey, Sadie Conley, Sadie Stutsman) known for wearing fancy hats, riding astride and loving a fast moving team of high stepping horses; the horsethief and onetime would-be train robber (it was an utter failure) "Tom King" aka Flo Quick Mundis (she proved to be a jail escape artist, disappeared and died in a bordello in the early 1900's in southern Arizona; the would be horse thieves and desperadoes known as Cattle Annie and Little Britches (who also rode astride, sold booze to the Native Americans, and were juvenile delinquents by any measure). They were caught and sent to a Massachusetts Reformatory, they reformed and returned home to live out their lives quietly; the young girl (just 17) who did appear to have a crush on one of the notorious Christian brothers who broke jail in Oklahoma City in 1895 due to her help sneaking in a gun. She reformed, married and disappeared into northern Oklahoma.

When all settled, she married and moved far away to leave behind her the days as the alleged "Rose of the Cimarron".  

Note, although a popular photograph is often used and labeled with her name, it is believed to be a fake.  The image, showing a young woman in a striped dress holding a revolver, was said to have been made under the direction of U.S. Deputy Marshall Bill Tilghman, in an attempt to shield the true identity of Rose and help her make a new start.Author Cy Martin in his book 'Whiskey and Wild Women: AN Amusing Account of the Saloons and Bawds of the Old West" (1974) says the image is actually Jennie Metcalf (i.e. 'Little Britches" who served a year in the Farmington, Massachusetts Reformatory in 1895) who rode with the Doolin Gang (pg.120).

Thought to be a staged photo, using a female prisoner.

Many of the outlaws of the Ingalls Battle were known to have frequented some of the dens and houses in Hell's Half Acre.  Many of the lawmen had walked its streets helping to keep peace.  Just another indication of the way "Hell" had a tendency to seep out into surrounding areas.

Rose Dunn aka "Rose of the Cimarron", along with "Cattle Annie", "Little Britches", Jessie Findley (Finley), and Flora Quick Mundis aka Tom King would fill dramatically the void left by the mysterious murder of Belle Starr in 1889 near Eufaula.  A fascinating page of truly unique history...found in Oklahoma...on the fringes of "Hell."

In the end, Rose married the son of a well known early businessman of Payne and Noble counties. The story, once begun, seems to have been hard to settle or put to rest. Most of her family - brothers and cousins - ended up heading further west. Rose did and remarried later to a man named Fleming. She died in 1955 and a photo of her in those far west days survive to show her love of riding horses never dimmed. It can be hoped that people can come to appreciate the new western woman she represented - a woman raised to be independent, to ride horses with vigor and when life knocked you on the chin, you simply got up, dusted off your hands and went on.

 Bonus: Her story inspired this classic and lovely song from Poco.