"The Horse Queen of Idaho"
Katherine Caroline Wilkins (1857 – 1936), aka Kitty or Kittie, was a horse breeder at the turn of the 20th century known as the "Horse Queen of Idaho." She was the only American woman at that time whose livelihood was based solely on the trade. The Wilkins Horse Company at Bruneau's Diamond Ranch supplied thousands of horses for Midwestern markets like St. Louis and Chicago, and later to the U.S. Army in the First World War.
Wilkins was raised in Tuscarora, Nevada where her father John Wilkins operated a hotel. She was well educated, sent to St. Vincent’s Academy in Walla Walla, Washington and later the Convent of Notre Dame in San Jose, California. In the early 1880's, her family moved to the Bruneau country of Idaho and began operating the horse ranch that she later inherited.
She retired to Glenns Ferry, Idaho after 1920.
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