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From: "Maggie Stewart" <>
Subject: [CO-ROOTS-L] BIO: H. J. ALEXANDER.
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 15:23:28 -0400


"History of Colorado", edited by Wilbur Fisk Stone, published by The S. J.
Clarke Publishing Co. (1918) Vol. II

p. 68, 70
photo p. 69


H. J. ALEXANDER.

Not by leaps and bounds but along the path of steady progress, a
path carved out by determined effort and close application has H. J.
Alexander reached his present prominent and creditable position in
financial circles of Denver as president of the First National Bank. He
is also identified with several other corporate interests which have
led to the substantial development and progress of business activity in
the city and at the same time have had marked effect upon the
upbuilding of his individual fortune.

Mr. Alexander was born in Fairfield, Iowa, August 20, 1851, and
is a son of the late William Knox Alexander, a native of Pennsylvania
and a representative of an old Pennsylvania family of Scotch descent.
He was a boot and shoe manufacturer, following that business in the
Keystone state and afterward in Iowa, having become one of the early
settlers of Fairfield, Iowa. He was also a Civil war veteran,
responding to the country's call for troops and joining an Iowa
regiment in which he served as captain. His political endorsement was
given to the republican party and he took a very active interest in
public affairs and civic matters and served as probate judge at
Fairfield, Iowa, where his death ultimately occurred. He married Ann
Elizabeth Fore, a native of Pennsylvania and a representative of one of
the old families of that state, of Pennsylvania Dutch lineage. Mrs.
Alexander has also passed away. Their family numbered six children,
three sons and three daughters.

H. J. Alexander of this review was the fifth in order of birth
and while spending his youthful days under the parental root he pursued
a public school education in Fairfield, Iowa, continuing his studies to
the age of sixteen years, when he started out in the business world on
his own account. During two years thereafter he followed agricultural
pursuits and through the succeeding two years engaged in clerking in a
store. He afterward spent a year as deputy county clerk of Jefferson
county, Iowa, and on removing westward located in Colorado Springs,
where he engaged in ranching for a year. He then made his initial step
in connection with the banking business by entering the First National
Bank of Colorado Springs in the capacity of teller. He remained there
for a year and a half and then removed to Lake City, where he was
assistant cashier of the Miners & Merchants Bank for three years and
cashier for tour years. He next held the position of cashier in the
First National Bank at Trinidad, Colorado, where he remained for
seventeen years, and on the expiration of that period he removed to
Denver, where he arrived In June, 1902. Here he became cashier of the
Continental National Bank and remained with that institution and with
the Capital National for ten years, when the latter was consolidated
with the First National Bank and Mr. Alexander became its vice
president, filling the position until 1915, when he was elected to the
presidency, and has remained since as the head and chief executive
officer of this strong moneyed institution. He is likewise a director
and vice president of the International Trust Company of Denver, a
director of the First National Bank of Pueblo, Colorado, a director of
the Denver Union Water Company, treasurer and a director of the Denver
Tramway Company and a director of the Seventeenth Street Building
Company. His interests and activities are thus broad and varied and
constitute a valuable contribution to business activity and development
in the city. For forty years he was connected with Thatcher Brothers,
covering residence in Lake City, in Trinidad and in Denver. He is
indeed a self-made man in the highest and best sense of the term.
Starting out in the business world without financial assistance, he has
steadily worked his way upward, carefully utilizing every opportunity
for honorable advancement and gaining that broadening experience which
has qualified him for further duties and larger responsibilities. Each
year has chronicled his progress and noted the development of his
powers, which have ultimately brought him to a most conspicuous and
honorable position in the financial circles of the state.

On the 27th of September, 1880, Mr. Alexander was married at
Silver Creek, New York, to Miss Jennie Louise King, a native of the
Empire state and a daughter of Delos G. and Adelaide (Woodbury) King.
Mr. and Mrs. Alexander have become the parents of two children: Sidney
King, who was born in Lake City, December 11, 1884, and passed away in
Trinidad, Colorado, April 11, 1902; and Philip Knox. who was born
September 29, 1891, and is a lieutenant in the Three Hundred and Forty-
first Regiment of Field Artillery.

In politics Mr. Alexander has always been a stalwart republican.
He belongs to the Masonic fraternity and is connected with the Denver
Club and the Denver Country Club. His religious faith is that of the
Methodist church. His military experience covers five years' service as
a member of the state militia during his residence at Lake City. He is
a forceful and resourceful man whose business balances up with the
principles of truth and honor and who by the utilization of the
opportunities that he has met has become a strong center of the
community in which he lives. In his entire career he has displayed keen
discernment and the faculty of separating the important features of any
subject from its incidental or accidental circumstances and out of the
struggle with small opportunities he has come finally into a field of
broad and active influence and usefulness.

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