(Myra Belle Shirley)

Born: February 5, 1848
Died: February 3, 1889

Sometimes called the female Jesse James, Belle Starr was an expert rider and a good shot. A foul-tempered cattle and horse thief, she lived with a number of outlaws and earned a reputation as a Bandit Queen in Texas and the Indian Territory.

Border wars and banditry

Myra Belle Shirley was born in a log cabin near Carthage, Missouri, in 1848. Her father, a farmer and tavern owner, came from a wealthy and aristocratic (socially exclusive) Virginia family. At the age of eight, Belle enrolled in the Carthage Female Academy, where she attended classes through the eighth grade. Because the Kansas-Missouri border had become a battleground for people who were fighting over slavery, Belle’s father decided to move his family away from the violence—to Scyene, Texas, not far from Dallas.

Several years after her family moved...