ABSTRACT
When Edith Kohl published her book Land of the Burnt Thigh in 1938, a New York Times book reviewer announced that it was “one of the most interesting books of Western settlement” to have appeared in a long time. Two factors contributed to the popularity of the book. First, it demonstrated that there were still pioneers struggling in the wilderness in the first decade of the 20th century. Second, it brought to the reader's attention that some of those pioneers were single women. In 1907 Edith and her sister, Ida Mary Ammons, attempted to establish a homestead near Pierre, South Dakota. While they lacked the usual resources for “proving up,” they had other kinds of talents that enabled them to establish their claim: they taught school, published a newspaper (The Wand), ran a printing shop, a store and a post office.
