7. A Stylish Wild West Outlaw
Old West outlaw Belle Starr was a fashionable criminal. She rode her horse sidesaddle while clad in a black velvet riding habit, a plumed hat atop her head, and two pistols with cartridge belts across her hips. An associate of the James-Younger Gang, which featured the notorious Jesse James and became infamous for bank, train, and stagecoach robberies across ten states, Belle became a dangerous criminal in her own right. Born Myra Maybelle Shirley in 1848 into a well-off family near Carthage, Missouri, Belle grew up in relative comfort. She attended Missouri’s Carthage Female Academy, where she was instructed in feminine refinements, learned piano, and received a classical education. That should have put her on the typical Southern belle path of a proper young lady who aspired to marry a prosperous man, raise a family, and do nothing interesting, let alone controversial, in her life.
This belle took a different path. In her early years, Belle led the life of a coddled wealthy girl. She was a good student at the Carthage Female Academy, and a polite young lady who played the piano well. However, she liked to rub her “rich girl” status in the face of her peers, and went out of her way to become the center of attention. Unlike typical Southern belles, Belle loved the outdoors. She preferred to ride and shoot with her brother Bud, instead of stay cooped up inside her all-girls school. Belle probably got her wild streak from her father, John Shirley. Although a prosperous farmer and businessman, Shirley was nonetheless considered the “black sheep” of a wealthy Virginia family that had moved out West.
