USA > Colorado > Colorado pioneers in picture and story > Part 31
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He was one of the pillars of the Democratic party in the State from the time he was elected to the impor-
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tant office of governor, but his friends in the Republican party were legion.
The governor was of scholarly attainments, great executive ability, and with it all he was a plain and un- pretentious gentleman.
He had faith in the boundless resources of Colorado, and from the beginning of his career he was a zealous advocate and surprising prophet of the industrial de- velopment of the State. All through his life can be traced his great love for Colorado and his desire for the well-being of his fellow-man.
He married handsome Mary Goodell, and when he was elected the chief executive of Colorado, she dispensed the hospitality of the governor's home in a way that re- flected credit on the State.
Mrs. Grant's early associations in the home of her father. Colonel Goodell, who was always intimate with public life and with her grandfather, Governor Matte- son of Illinois, fitted her to occupy the position.
Governor Grant built a palatial residence in Denver on the brow of Capitol Hill. facing the mountains out of which he had dug his fortune. His widow still lives in that home. She is a woman of rare tact and intelligence, deeply interested in club work and everything that stands for the progress of women.
Governor and Mrs. Grant have two sons, Lester and James B., Jr., who are young men of fine promise.
Mrs. James B. Grant
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JOHN F. CAMPION
John F. Campion is a strong type of the men who developed the Leadville mines. He said :
"I drove through the mining camps of Colorado in a covered wagon, for three months, and reached Leadville in September, 1879. The mining boom was at its height. I made
the acquaintance of a bunch of prospectors who were in the busi- ness of making mining locations
and selling them as soon as a ten- foot hole was dug. They managed to locate seven
eight claims a week, and I made
a n arrangement with them to buy the claims at $100 each. One of the peculiarities o f John F. Campion this bunch was to get drunk every Saturday after receiv- ing their money. It became my religious duty to go to the police court of the city jail and bail them out on Monday, at which time they usually looked as if they had been shot through a carpet cleaning machine. I sold the claims to J. Whitaker Wright, a famous promoter, and I understood later that he sold the properties in Philadelphia for $10,000 each. He was tried in London
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for fraud, convicted and sentenced to a penal institution for life. In the court room, after the judge had de- livered the sentence, he swallowed the fumes of cyanide of potassium from a cigar.
"I heard of a large mass of lead ore at Horse Shoe, which was at the head of Empire Gulch, about twelve miles from Leadville, and immediately secured a number of miners, located my claims, did the assessment work. incorporated a company called the 'Crusader,' and in February, 1880, sold it to a Boston company for $150.000. These were the boom days, when everything was selling and everybody was buying that had money to invest.
"My next mining investment was the Imes, located on Iron Hill. This property was afterwards consolidated with the White Cap Forfeit, Collateral and Norman Bourdman, forming a continuous plat of land extending from the crest of Iron Hill to California Gulch. The property was developed and a large shipment of lead- silver ore taken from it.
"Then I opened up the first downtown property be- low the carbonate fault. It was called the Elk Consoli- dated Mining Company. This property produced a large quantity of high-grade ore. The opening of this prop- erty caused a great deal of work to be done on adjacent properties, which led to the vast developments that later occurred in what is known as the 'Down-Town' territory.
"Later I secured the right to purchase the Little Jonny and adjacent property on Breece Hill, in the Lead- ville district. This property is now producing, and has yielded a great many millions of dollars.
"Along with the excitement and the hurrah of a min- ing camp," continued Mr. Campion, "there are many pathetic things.
"Among the early arrivals in Leadville were Mrs. Hosmer and her daughter. The girl, whose name was
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Gertie, was commonly called 'the candy girl.' They es- tablished a candy store very close to the Clarendon Hotel, which was the principal hotel at that time. The girl be- came infatuated with a gambler and ran away with him. Everybody knew her. She was a general favorite with the people. A few months later she returned. broken in health, and her dream of happiness exploded. She lost all interest in the affairs of the world, and appeared to be dying from a broken heart. This girl had a beautiful contralto voice. One evening, a couple of months after she returned, she sent word to several of her friends that she wanted to see them at her house that evening at a certain time. The people invited went to the residence and found the girl emaciated and in a dying condition. She told her guests that she was going to die, and wanted to sing them something. Then in a sweet, strong con- tralto voice she sang, 'See that My Grave Is Kept Green.' The soul of Gertie Hosmer floated away on the last words of the song."
After accumulating an immense fortune, Mr. Cam- pion built an elegant home in Denver, and has been con- spicuously and ably identified with the development of the City and State.
The beet sugar industry in Colorado, with a growth almost as marvelous as Jonah's gourd, is largely due to Mr. John F. Campion.
During the time he was president of the Chamber of Commerce Mr. Campion, with two or three friends, raised a fund to be distributed as prizes throughout the State to farmers raising on an acre tract the best sample of sugar beets. He also employed a man named Holmes to visit the different parts of the State where it was thought sugar beets could be raised, and talk to the farmers, de- liver lectures, and in a general way educate them in the sugar beet business. It was suggested that each farmer plant an acre of beets and send his samples to the Agri-
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cultural College, where prizes were awarded for the best beets. This was done with the hope that capital would be induced to build sugar mills. It was found impossi- ble to interest capital in the sugar beet business, so Mr. Campion and Mr. Boettcher, Colonel Dodge and J. R. Mckinney built the first mill in Colorado, at Grand Junction. This mill was started working, and owing to inexperience a good deal of the sugar went down the Grand river. About 25,000 tons of beets were frozen in the ground, and the company promptly paid for them.
The Great Western Sugar Company, projected by the same syndicate, built the second mill at Loveland, two years later. This mill proved to be a complete suc- cess from its inception, and has likely more money to its credit for the size of the mill than any similar mill in the world. A few years later the sugar trust bought the control of both properties, after discovering that it would cost them less money to buy the properties than to "bust" the syndicate that owned them, and started their present construction work of sugar mills, which has led to the building of many more in the State.
In conjunction with Mr. Boettcher. Senator C. J. Hughes and Colonel Dodge. Mr. Campion started the Great Western Packing Company, which has built up a business of millions of dollars yearly. At the inception of this enterprise the packing trust decided they would clean up the outfit, and for years kept sending train- loads of dressed beef into the State of Colorado and adjacent territories, and sold the beef for less than it cost them. For a time the Great Western Packing Company seemed to eat up money ; two or three hundred thousand dollars weekly did not cut the slightest figure. One day the trust people came to the conclusion that it would be much cheaper to buy them out than fight them any longer. Swift & Company are now the owners of the property in question.
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In conjunction with Mr. Boettcher, Mr. Campion also owns the Big Horn Land and Cattle Company, which has a very large estate and a large number of cat- tle running thereon. It is located in Jackson County close to the Wyoming line. Some of the finest Hereford cattle in the West have been raised and sold by the con- cern in question.
In conjunction with Mr. Boettcher, Mr. Campion built a powder and fuse plant, and sent men to Germany to become thoroughly posted in the manufacture of fuse. Later on this plant was sold to the powder trust at a satisfactory price.
While Mr. Campion contributed to the widespread development of Colorado's mineral resources, he has largely participated in developing the other industries of the State. He is a man of masterful executive ability, and has the reputation of being among the heaviest capi- talists in Colorado. As a citizen he is generous. patriotic, progressive, and contributes liberally to all enterprises of a religious and philanthropic nature. With a vision of the fu- ture, he is today pushing forward great enterprises that will be powerful in shaping the destiny of Colorado.
He was largely the projector of the Colorado Museum of Natural His- torv. which is for the benefit of the city of Den- ver and the State gener- allv.
Mrs. J. F. Campion
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Mrs. Campion is a woman of striking beauty and fine culture. She looks at the world from a broad view-point, and is noted for her work in charitable organizations.
CHARLES BOETTCHER
Charles Boettcher was one of the first merchants in Leadville. He established a hardware business in the cloud city and gave his attention to banking, mining and mercantile business, in all of which he was successful. He built the first electric light plant in Leadville, and has been president of that company from its organization.
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He made his own way in the world, and became shrewd observer and judge of local conditions. It was not long before he felt convinced that Den- ver was destined to be- come the commercial cen- ter of the Rocky Moun- tain region, and began to make investments in Den- ver. A few years later he made it his home, and has won a place in the roll of Colorado State builders. He was foremost in start- ing the sugar beet indus- try, and helped to steer its course through the trials of early years up to the Charles Boettcher mammoth accomplish- ments of the present.
He was largely instrumental in making Denver the great central clearing house of live stock for the Rocky Mountain region.
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He was the organizer of the Colorado Portland Ce- ment Company. This industry is contributing to the permanent building of the State, in the culverts and bridges of railroads and highways, in the sidewalks of the cities, in embankments along the streams, in pipes for sewers. in ditch flumes and in the structure of buildings.
Mr. Charles Boettcher, while holding this triple claim to distinction in Colorado's industrial development. is still a young man, and is one of the active and ener- getic workers along many lines for the upbuilding of the City and State. His son, Mr. Claude Boettcher, is promi- nent among the younger leaders of public enterprises, and his beautiful and accomplished daughter is a social favorite.
DR. LEWIS LEMEN
Dr. Lewis Lemen is a man of striking physical ap- pearance, tall and finely proportioned, with a genial manner that makes him a fine type of the much-loved "family physician." He possesses a rare fund of humor, and enjoys telling stories of his early life in Colorado. He said :
"There is something in eating bacon and stale bread, side by side with a cabin mate, that makes very strong friends. I often think of my early days in Georgetown, and I often go there to look over the old ground and see the old friends. One day in 1873 I was called to see a patient, and had to travel over a winding mountain road. Coming to a place where the road widened, commonly called a turn-out, I stopped to let my horse pant for breath. A moment later Bishop Matz, a local priest, stopped his horse by the side of mine, and while we were talking, Henry Boyer, an undertaker, appeared on the scene. It struck me as a peculiar coincident, and I said in a joking way: 'I wonder if we three are going to the same place.' Upon comparing notes we found that we
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were going to different places. It was a relief to me, for a doctor dislikes to lose a patient.
"I am a walking advertisement for Colorado's great
Dr. L. E. Lemen
health - giving cli- mate," continued the doctor. "I ar- rived in Denver in 1873 and regis- tered at the Amer- ican house. I was dressed in a light suit and wore a gray plug hat, which in those days was known as the Greeley hat. After breakfast I put on my coat and hat and start- ed out to see what the town looked like. At that time there was a wood- yard north of the hotel. I stepped upon the scales and balanced the beam -overcoat, hatand
all-at one hundred and thirty-five pounds. Then I started up Sixteenth street and passed a store where a number of men were sitting around the door in the sun- shine, and one remarked, 'Poor fellow, he's robbing the graveyard.' At the corner of Fifteenth and Curtis I passed another squad of loungers, and one man, with a motion of his head towards me, said : 'It looks as if he is trying to save funeral expenses.' After I gained my pres-
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ent avoirdupois my friends of those days call me the ad- vertisement for Colorado as a health resort. And there were others, too, who came in the early days, not for gold, but for health-not so much for the cure of disease as for the prevention of the development of disease.
"The merits of Colorado as a sanitarium, especially for those in the early stages of tuberculosis of the lungs, have attracted wide attention. This climatic advantage has been one of the really important elements in the development of the State, for many of the invalids who came here in the early days reached an almost complete recovery from their illness and took an active part in the work of State building."
Dr. Lemen is so well informed in every branch of his profession that he was asked to write a chapter on the medical profession in Smiley's Centennial History of Colorado. He is a public-spirited man, and ranks among the successful men who have made possible the Denver of today. His home in Denver, where he has lived for the past twenty-five years, is one of the most elegant in the city. He is cultured and refined in his tastes and delightfully interesting in conversation. He and his kind, affable wife have a large circle of friends and acquaintances.
CHARLES S. THOMAS
Senator Charles S. Thomas came to Colorado in December, 1871, began the practice of law in Denver and, except in the intervals of his public life, has followed that profession constantly. His objective point when leav- ing the East was California, but a recent census of Den- ver, completed the day before his arrival, showing an in- crease in its population of one hundred per cent in twelve months, followed by the enthusiastic comments of the local press as to immediate future growth, induced him to cast his lot in Colorado.
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In 1873 he formed a partnership with Honorable T. M. Patterson, which, broken by a short interval. continued until 1889. A portion of this time Mr. Thomas resided in Lead- ville. Mr. Thomas was city attorney of Denver in 1875 and 1876; governor of the State in 1899-1900; was elected to the United States Senate in 1912 for the unexpired term of the late Honorable Charles J. Hughes, and was re-elected in 1914 for the succeeding six years.
Mr. Thomas always insists that he is indebted to the counsel, companion- Chas. S. Thomas ship and affection of his wife for whatever success or prominence he may have attained in law, politics or society.
ISAAC N. STEVENS
Isaac Newton Stevens has always been a State builder from the time he came to Colorado, a mere boy.
Early in his career he identified himself with the great commercial and industrial bodies of the State, and no railroad or other enterprise for the benefit or develop- ment of the State has been inaugurated that has not had his active support.
Mr. Stevens and the late Earl B. Coe took the initial steps by which sugar beets were introduced into Colorado.
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They investigated the growing of beets in Nebraska, and determined that the Colorado soil was better adapted to sugar beet growing than was the soil of Nebraska.
They met the practical problem by having them- selves placed on a specially created Chamber of Com- merce committee, and by inducing John F. Camp- ion to become president of the Chamber of Com- merce and give his power- ful aid to the enterprise.
They sent to the Agri- cultural Department a t Washington and obtained enough seed for the first year's experiment, and sev- Isaac N. Stevens eral farmers were induced to plant the seed, and after that first experimental year the growing of sugar beets in Colorado went with a rush.
From the inception of the Moffat railroad to the present day Mr. Stevens has been one of its most ardent champions, both as an individual and as proprietor of the Pueblo Chieftain.
In his line of public work Mr. Stevens has owned and edited the Colorado Springs Gazette and the Pueblo Chieftain, and both of these newspapers, under his man- agement, were great powers for public good.
He has written two political novels, "The Liber- ators" and "An American Suffragette." which have had a large sale in the United States, and both of which have had a marked influence upon American political affairs.
Mr. Stevens has believed that one of the weaknesses
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of government in this country was a lack of equipment and training on the part of public officials, and he spent five years in traveling to every section of the globe to study governmental conditions and problems, to the end that he might make his public work more effective.
Mr. Stevens was one of the early men advocates of woman's suffrage. When the question was submitted in Colorado, 1893, Mr. Stevens campaigned the State and raised a considerable portion of the funds for the success of the cause. Since the adoption of suffrage in Colorado Mr. Stevens has campaigned in several eastern States for the woman's cause. He is an able lawyer. As city at- torney he displayed fine ability; as a public speaker he is argumentative and forceful; as reader and thinker he keeps himself in touch with the current thought of the time.
JOHN W. SPRINGER
Mr. John W. Springer came to Denver in 1896, attracted to this glorious climate in the hope of benefiting his wife. His first interest in public af- fairs was in connection with the late Senator Ed- ward O. Wolcott in mak- ing a fight in Colorado for the gold standard.
During the next ten years he built what is known as the "Springer John W. Springer castle," on South Broad- way overlooking the city of Denver, and which is surrounded by an estate of 11,000 acres. It is one of the show-places of the entire country.
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He became vice-president of the Chamber of Com- merce under Mr. John Campion, and vigorously aided in the establishment of the sugar beet industry in this State.
With others he organized the National Live Stock Association, with headquarters in Denver, and was for ten years its active head.
In 1902 he organized the Continental Trust Com- pany, and aided in purchasing the Continental building at Sixteenth and Lawrence streets.
Mr. Springer also aided in organizing the Capitol National Bank, which was afterwards consolidated with the First National Bank of this city.
Mr. Springer also took an enthusiastic part in secur- ing the purchase of the enlargement of the Denver Union Stock Yards and the packing houses, which is one of Denver's greatest assets.
Mr. Springer has aided very many permanent enter- prises which are now firmly established in the State of Colorado, notably the Fountain Valley Land and Irriga- tion Company at Colorado Springs, the Teller Reservoir and Irrigation Company at Pueblo, and the North Platte Canal and Colonization Company, and many others which have been and will be instrumental in bringing thousands of new home-seekers to Colorado. Mr. Springer has always taken the position that Colorado money should be kept at home and that all Colorado enterprises should be heartily supported by the financial interests of the State. Many corporations now doing business in the city of Denver have been supported by him in season and out of season, and his greatest pleasure has been taken in being known as a builder.
DENVER'S CLUBS
The Denver Club owes its existence to the great rush to Denver in 1880. It is a social organization for the business and professional men of the city.
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The membership is limited to three hundred resi- dent and two hundred non-resident members. The fine club house, on the corner of Glenarm and Seventeenth. is one of the elegant establishments of its kind west of New York.
The University Club was incorporated January 29. 1891. According to the constitution, "any man shall be eligible to membership in this club who has received from a university or college a degree, to obtain which in regu- lar course at least two years' residence and study are required, or who shall have received an honorary degree from such university or college. or who shall have gradu- ated at the United States Military Academy or at the United States Naval Academy : provided that a candidate who holds an honorary degree only shall be distinguished in art, literature, science or public service ; and provided that professional degrees shall entitle to membership only when given by such university or college as shall be desig- nated by the board of directors, and the list of such uni- versities and colleges shall be posted in the rooms of the club."
The Denver Athletic Club was incorporated April 4, 1884. Its objects are as follows :
"That the particular business and objects for which said corporation is formed are to purchase or build and to hold, maintain and operate a gymnasium in the city of Denver, county of Arapahoe, for the amusement. recreation and physical culture of all those who may at any time become members thereof; and also for the pur- pose of encouraging all proper athletic sports and pas- times of every kind and nature whatsoever." .
HOW DENVER WAS MADE THE CITY OF LIGHTS
In 1898 the Denver Consolidated Electric Company and the Denver Consolidated Gas Company were merged
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in the Denver Gas and Electric Light Company. This new organization brought a commanding personality into Denver's life. Henry L. Doherty was placed at the head of the light company and immediately began a very active and aggressive campaign to give Denver a splendid lighting and power service. Mr. Doherty introduced mod- ern methods in the con- duct of this utility and soon made it very appar- ent that the light company would become an active factor in the upbuilding of the city. He announced that the policy of the or- ganization would be to in- crease the growth of Den- ver, and that in doing this Henry L. Doherty work he would not only be helping the prosperity of every citizen, but would also contribute much towards producing dividends for his own company.
When Mr. Doherty began his work here Denver was. poorly illuminated, and he set about to make it the best lighted city in America. One of the first features of this campaign was a movement to build a welcome arch at the Union depot. A number of prominent citizens co-operated with Mr. Doherty in this work, and the result was a magnificent welcome arch, which has since blazed a hearty welcome to every visitor coming within Denver's gates. Following the erection of the welcome arch came
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a movement to establish the most modern street lighting on Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth streets. The lighting of these streets is far ahead of anything of its kind in the country. The popularity of lavish illumina- tion soon spread, and Denver became famous all over the country as "the City of Lights."
The crowning glory of "the City of Lights" was the erection of the Gas and Electric building, which is ad- mitted to be the most artistically illuminated structure in the world. The architects and skilled illuminating engineers collaborated in planning this structure, and the result is an artis- tic triumph in exterior il- lumination. The building is studded with 13,000 in- candescent lamps of vari- ous sizes, giving a total of 200,000 candlepower. It --. 4t is a splendid monument to Denver enterprise, and has become one of the great show places of the city. The building is built on a deep foundation of gran- [ ite and concrete, and stands like a night-bloom- ing cereus, a luminous glory to the city, a sur- Denver Gas & Electric Building prise to tourists, and a splendor before which art must bow its head. It has the simple, majestic architectural lines of the Italian Renaissance, and with its clear, cloud-white surface, ideal for the illumination that suffuses it at night, suggests the product of the jeweler rather than the worker in stone and mortar. Walter Juan Davis, for many years the
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