Polly Pry

While riding the train to visit her parents in Denver, Leonel “Nellie” Campbell Ross O’Bryan (1857-1938), known by her alias Polly Pry, was offered a job writing for the newly established Denver Post by Frederick Bonfils and Harry Tammen. She became a staff writer and was given the freedom to write what she wanted. This included covering the incarceration and trial of Alferd Packer, mine labor struggles, women’s suffrage and Mexican Revolution among others. She later created her own newspaper, The Polly Pry.

Her brother Charles purchased this home in 1896. 1900 census records list Nellie as living in this West Highland home with her mother, father and both brothers. The family owned this home until 1932.
She is buried with her parents at Fairmount. She came from a wealthy, Mississippi plantation owning family. The family moved here because of her father's tuberculosis. She met Frederick Bonfils and convinced him to let her have a column in the Denver Post. The rest, they say, is history.

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