A Natural Born Businesswoman

That's one way to describe Nellie Cashman, one of the Old West's most famous entrepreneurs, who showed the gold in her heart to the miners who regarded her as an “angels of mercy.” Someone described her as “Pretty as a Victorian cameo and, when necessary, tougher than two-penny nails.” Nellie—her real name was Ellen—immigrated as a child from Ireland with her sister, Fanny, and took advice from Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant to go west. Fanny settled down and had five children, b