Alice Greenough Orr, the Red Lodge Bronc Rider Who Rodeoed on Three Continents

Who was Alice Greenough Orr?

Alice Greenough Orr was a bronc rider and rodeo organizer born on March 17, 1902, in Red Lodge, Montana. She was the second of eight children of Benjamin and Myrtle Webb Greenough, and she died in Tucson, Arizona, on August 20, 1995, at age 93. The Active Historian profile traces her career from ranch rodeos to the largest arenas in the world.

Growing up on a Montana ranch

Alice grew up on a ranch and competed in local rodeos. In the 1920 census her seven siblings were aged 10 to 19. As a teenager she delivered a mail route for the U.S. Postal Service. Her sister Marge, also spelled Margie, rode alongside her, and her brother Turk Greenough became a rodeo rider too. Hired with Marge as lady bronc riders for Billboard Magazine, the sisters sewed their own costumes. The two sisters were hired as a pair, which kept them together on the road for years.

How good a bronc rider was Alice Greenough?

She raced relay from 1925 to 1928 and added bronc riding in 1928. In 1929 she joined the King Brothers Wild West Rodeo. A serious accident in October 1930 at El Paso, Texas, broke her left ankle and kept her in bed four months and on crutches for a year.

She won the Boston Garden bronc riding in 1933, 1935 and 1936, and in 1936 rode Red Wing to win the cowgirl bronc riding contest at Madison Square Garden. In 1940 she won the ladies' bronc title there again, the second-to-last woman to do so, as women's events ended in 1942. She also won the Cowgirl Buckjumping Contest in Sydney, Australia, in 1935 and 1939.

Rodeo around the world

In 1932 she rode bulls in Mexico and sailed to Spain, where she worked in thirty bull rings. In 1934 she sailed with 110 other athletes to London for the World's Series Rodeo. The profile gives a picture of a working rider who followed contracts wherever they led. The 1934 voyage to London on the Aurania carried 110 other athletes.

Film work and the Greenough-Orr Rodeo

Alice and Marge moved to Tucson, Arizona, with their families and worked as film extras and as a horse-wrangling team. She worked in the film industry on and off for about five decades, including stunt work, and she said she wanted to return to the family's Montana ranch after her years on the road. She had married Raymond Cahill in 1922, and their son E Jay was born in 1925. She married Joe Orr in 1967, and their touring company was the Greenough-Orr Rodeo. The profile adds that she still rode broncs at their rodeos occasionally.

Honors and legacy

According to The Active Historian, Greenough Orr was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 1975 and the National Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1983, alongside Marge and Turk. The Montana Cowboy Hall of Fame inducted her in 2010, and the National Cowboy Museum's Rodeo Hall of Fame page lists her among its inductees. She was also named among the 100 Most Influential Montanans of the 20th Century in 2012. For related rodeo history see the rodeo coverage on farm.FM and a farm.FM story about rodeo.