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Cobb, Charles D.

Charles D. Cobb
Columbus, Johnston County, Missouri
Tarrytown, N.Y.
Fort Fetterman, Wyoming

Charles D. Cobb was born in the town of Columbus, Johnston county, Missouri, June 15, 1844. Educated in the public schools of his native place and in the Irving Institute at Tarrytown, N.Y., he came to Denver in 1863, and for several years thereafter was employed as a clerk in Denver jobbing houses. In 1867 he became associated with Col. Robert Wilson in the post-tradership and in government contracting at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming, in which he continued until 1870 when he returned to Denver and organized a general fire insurance business covering Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico. Since that time the management of this extended business has engaged the greater part of his attention, although he has been and continues interested in various other enterprises in Denver.

In 1880-84 Mr. Cobb was a member of the Board of Education for School District No. 1, and in 1885 when the Board of Supervisors was added to the city’s legislative department, he was elected one of its members, and after two years of service in that position was nominated by the Democratic party as its candidate for Mayor of Denver, but was defeated by a small majority by William Scott Lee. Mr. Cobb participated in the organization of the Commercial National Bank and became its Vice President; also a participant in the organization of the Chamber of Commerce, he became a Director and Vice President of that body; one of the projectors of the Riverside Cemetery, he long served as its Secretary; and as a leader in the affairs of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows he has filled its various official positions including that of Grand Master of the State and that of representative of the Sovereign Grand Lodge.

Coe, Earl B.

Earl B. Coe
Oswego County, NY
Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, MI
Omaha, Douglas County, NE

Earl B. Coe, president of the Times-Sun Publishing Company, the corporation proprietary of the Denver Times, was born in Oswego, N. Y., on July 15, 1858. After the usual terms in the public schools of that city he entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he was graduated in the Law Department of that institution in 1880. Coming to the west in the autumn of that year, he located in Omaha where he established himself in the practice of his professional. After about one year of residence in Omaha, he removed to Denver, practiced alone a few years, and then formed a partnership with Edward L. Freeman, under the firm name of Coe & Freeman, that continued until Mr. Freeman’s death in 1891. Mr. Coe then joined Samuel L. Carpenter in a law partnership under the firm name of Coe & Carpenter. This relation existed until the spring of 1893 when Mr. Coe became the owner of the Colorado Sun newspaper. The particulars of his subsequent organization of the Times-Sun Publishing Company, of the acquisition of the Denver Times newspaper property, and of the consolidation of the times and the Sun, are related elsewhere on these pages. These transactions took him out of legal practice and, while he has been and is connected with various other business enterprises, he has, since 1894, given the greater part of his time and attention to the Times and its proprietary company. In 1892 Mr. Coe was the Republican candidate for Congress in the First (Denver) District, but that not having been a prosperous year for Republican candidates in Colorado, he shared the common defeat that befell his party. He was chiefly instrumental, as related in chapter LXIX, in the comparatively recent introduction in Colorado of the sugar beet industry, which has already grown to large proportions and bids fair to become one of great magnitude in the State.

Cooper, Job Adams

Job Adams Cooper
Greenville, Bond Co., IL
Ohio - unknown
New Jersey - unknown

Job Adams Cooper, sixth Governor of the State of Colorado (in the seventh term), was born in Greenville, Bond county, Ills., November 6, 1843, of English and Dutch descent. His father, Charles Cooper, an English manufacturer, came to the United States in 1820, settling first in New Jersey, later in Ohio, and still later removing to Bond county, Ills., where he became a farmer.

In his boyhood, Gov. Cooper attended school at Knoxville, Ills., and afterward entered Knox College at Galesburg, Ills. While at that institution he enlisted in the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Regiment Illinois Volunteers, under one of the later calls for troops by President Lincoln, and became Second Sergeant of Company C. With his regiment he was serving at Memphis, Tenn., when that city was attacked by the Confederate General Forrest in 1864, and remained in service until the regiment was mustered out.

Resuming his course at Knox College, he was graduated there, and then began studying law. After his admission to the Illinois bar, he returned to Greenville, and in 1868 was elected Clerk of the Circuit Court and Recorder of Bond county, serving four years.

Gov. Cooper removed to Colorado in May, 1872, located in Denver, and resumed practice of law, which he continued until the autumn of that year when he engaged in the fire insurance and real estate business in partnership with Peter Winne. In this business partnership, which continued until the autumn of 1876, he acquired important interests in the city and laid the foundations of his fortune. In the spring of 1877 when the German Bank was reorganized as the German National Bank, as related elsewhere in this volume, he became its first Vice president, but before the close of that year was elected Cashier of that bank. Except during a brief interval he continued as Cashier of the German National until after his election as Governor of Colorado in November, 1888.

Gov. Cooper, an earnest, consistent Republican, had been nominated for Governor by his party, and his election by a majority of about 10,000 occurred on the forty-fifth anniversary of his birth. As Chief Executive of the State, his administration of public affairs was able, faithful and conservative, and when he closed his term in January, 1891, he had the approval and good-will of the people of Colorado.

Gov. Cooper was one of the organizers of the National Bank of Commerce in the summer of 1890, became a member of its first Board of Directors, and was elected its first President. He continued as President of that bank until January, 1897, when he retired, from his more active participation in business affairs. He was one of the builders of Denver, and his interests in the city were large and many. The great "Cooper Building" at Seventeenth and Curtis streets, erected in 1892-93, an architectural ornament of the city, was one of his works. He was also interested in various undertakings elsewhere in Colorado and for several years before his death was identified with several important mines in the Cripple Creek district.

Governor Cooper’s death at his home in Denver on January 20, 1899, after a very brief illness, caused deep sorrow in the city and State, or he had been a man of much public spirit and had exerted great influence in the development of both. On September 17, 1867, he married Miss Jane O., daughter of Rev. R.E. Barnes, of Galesburg, Ills., and she survives him. Four children, a son and three daughters, were born to them.