Carrie Adell Green was born in Marengo, McHenry County, Illinois, in 1854. She was the second daughter of Dr. John W. and Louise Babcock Green.

Her father was one of the most noted surgeons of the Mississippi valley. He is remembered for being the first surgeon to administer an anesthetic west of Chicago. In the Civil War, he served first as regimental surgeon of the Ninety-fifth Illinois, and later as brigade and finally as division surgeon with General Grant in the Army of the Tennessee.

Her mother, a native of Lavonia Center, New York, was a descendant of Aaron Burr. Mrs. Green accompanied her husband throughout the famous Red River Campaign, sharing every danger of field and hospital.

Carrie attended public school in Marengo and Ann Arbor. Having developed an early love for music, she studied music under some of the foremost American and European vocal masters.

It was a surprise to many that Carrie Adell Green chose to marry Robert Strahorn, a reporter for the Denver Rocky Mountain News with a reputation as an Indian fighter.

Immediately following their wedding on September 19, 1877, Dell (as he called her) and Pard (as she called him) set out for Cheyenne Wyoming Territory. When they had settled in, Robert received a job offer from the Union Pacific Railroad. Previously, he had prepared a handbook entitled Wyoming Black Hawk and Big Horn Region, which described in great detail the climate and resources of that area. Union Pacific Railroad President Jay Gould had obtained a copy, and saw it as a way to help attract settlers to the West – following the routes of his railway. He asked Robert to write more such handbooks and pamphlets for distribution.

Carrie, not at all impressed with Cheyenne, was determined to go with Robert rather than returning to her parents home in Marengo. She wrote, “But if there is ever a time in a woman's life when she will endure hardships and make sunshine out of shadows it is when she first leaves the home nest to follow the man of her choice. ... I determined not to be a stumbling block at the threshold of our new life.”

She did, indeed, endure hardships. The roads, such as they were, were rough and dusty when they weren’t wet and muddy. Often the party could find no shelter for the night, and sometimes food was in short supply.

The threat of harm from Indians was also quite real. Once, Robert was offered six ponies and two blankets in exchange for Carrie. He chose not to accept!

The couple spent each spring and fall traveling throughout the West, and returned home in the winter to write when traveling became difficult. Robert wrote pamphlets on Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. Carrie wrote stories for the Omaha Repbulican, as well as letters to her mother that would later form the basis for her famous book "Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage," which was published in 1911 by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

During the course of their career as scouts for Union Pacific. They traveled to Yellowstone and Hot Sulphur Springs in Montana; to Hailey Hot Springs and Lake Coeur d’Alene in Idaho; to Estes Park and Pikes Peak in Colorado. They saw pueblos in New Mexico, Yosemite in San Francisco, and traveled by canoe up the Fraser and Harrison rivers in British Columbia.

Carrie is known as the first white woman to tour the entire Yellowstone Park and one of the first to travel to and write about the wilds of Alaska.

After six years of traveling and writing, Robert determined to build railroad lines himself. In doing so, he established the towns of Hailey, Mountain Home, and Caldwell in Idaho, and Ontario in Oregon.

In 1890, Robert and Carrie moved east, settling in Boston for seven years. Robert became an investment banker, and Carrie devoted herself to music, literary studies, and good works. In her book, however, Carrie notes that they were not fully happy with their more “civilized” home. “We missed the great anthems of the forest and the singing streams, the crisp, cool night air; we missed the elixir from the snowy peaks, we missed the sunny Western skies, and the tent in the Rockies with the hearty spirit of Western good fellowship.”

Ultimately, in 1898, the couple made their last home was in Spokane, WA. With the fortune that Robert had made from his investments they were able to live in great style. It is here that Carrie wrote her book, which became a classic description of stagecoach days in the American West. The book was illustrated by the great western artist Charles M. Russell and published in 1911.

Carrie Adell Green Strahorn died during a visit to San Francisco on March 17, 1925, having spent more than thirty-four years exploring and writing about the American West.