Tom O'Day Productions
Bronco Nell
b. 1865 - d. 1952
Shortly after they arrived, Ella's husband left, leaving her everything plus a small child.
Ella took the name of Nell Smith and acquired a small place at the edge of town where she had barns, a corral and a bunk house.
She started her freight outfit hauling freight from Billings and Red Lodge, Montana, to Cody and on to Casper, Wyoming.
She also hauled freight from the mining town of Kerwin, Wyoming. During her trips she would break out her best horse and thus became referred to as "Bronco Nell."
"Bronco" had some run-ins with the law - selling moonshine (she had her own still) to a couple of Crow Indians and "misbranding" a couple of colts belonging to a neighbor.
She was the last woman to serve time in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. While there, she ran across her old friend Tom O'Day who was serving time for stealing some horses from Governor B.B. Brooks.
"Bronco Nell" died in Meeteetse in 1952, but her legacy lives on through the re-enacting of her life story by Jackie Maple of Cody, Wyoming, - the first Cowgirl Ambassador for Park County, Wyoming.
Jackie is also a direct decendent of Tubercio Vasquez, a famous Cody badit. Her grandfather was a teamster on the Oregon Trail, making three trips to Salt Lake. Then moving to the Big Sur area of California to homestead in the 1860's
