Adolph Coors
Encyclopedia
Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, Sr. (February 4, 1847 – June 5, 1929) was a brewman who started the Adolph Coors Company
in Golden, Colorado
in 1873.
in Rhenish Prussia
on February 4, 1847, the son of Joseph Kuhrs (c1820-1862) and Helena Hein (c1820-1862). He was apprenticed at age thirteen to the book and stationery store of Andrea & Company in nearby Ruhrort
from November 1860 until June 1862. His mother died on April 2, 1862. The Kuhrs family moved to Dortmund
, Westphalia
. In July 1862, Adolph was apprenticed for a three year period at a brewery owned by Henry Wenker in Dortmund. He was charged a fee for his apprenticeship, so he worked as a bookkeeper to pay for it. His father died on November 24, 1862. Orphaned, Adolph completed his apprenticeship and continued to work as a paid employee at the Wenker Brewery until May 1867. He then worked at breweries in Kassel
, Berlin
, and Uelzen
in Germany. Early in 1868, he immigrated to the United States
. He sailed from Hamburg
to New York City
and then moved to Chicago
arriving on May 30, 1868. His name was changed from "Kuhrs" to "Coors". He worked in the spring as a laborer, and during the summer he worked as a brewer. In the fall and winter he worked as a fireman, loading coal into the firebox of a steam engine. In the spring and summer of 1869 he worked as an apprentice bricklayer and a stone cutter. He became foreman of John Stenger's brewery on August 11, 1869, in Naperville, Illinois
, about 35 miles west of Chicago
. He resigned from Stenger's brewery on January 22, 1872, and arrived in Denver in April. He worked in Denver as a gardener for a month, then on May 1, 1872 he purchased a partnership in the bottling firm of John Staderman. In the same year he bought and assumed control of the entire business.
purchased the abandoned Golden City Tannery and converted it to the Golden Brewery. By February 1874 they were producing beer for sale. In 1880 Coors purchased Schueler's interest, and the brewery remained majority family-owned . When Prohibition
was begun in Colorado in 1916, he converted his brewery to make malted milk. The company also manufactured porcelain and ceramic products made from clay mined in Golden. The Coors Porcelain division has since split off, and is now known as CoorsTek
.
, on January 12, 1884. Bertha Coors was born on June 24, 1886, and Grover C. Coors was born in 1888. The last addition to the family, Herman Frederick Coors, came on July 24, 1890, when while the family was on vacation to Berlin
.
All of the daughters attended the Wolcott School for Girls in Denver. Louise married Henry F. Kugeler at the Coors Mansion, and Augusta married Herbert E. Collbran there on October 5, 1905. At the time, Transcript editor George West wrote "Miss Coors is a native Golden girl and proud of it. She is pretty and talented, and by her universally pleasant and courteous demeanor has endeared herself to all the people of her native town." She and her husband moved to Korea
, where Herbert was the son of the nation's transportation advisor and held an important position with the governmental railways. It is possible that with the advent of international shipping of Coors beer, which began in Korea in 1908, was directly related to the family's presence there. Adolph Jr., Grover and Herman all graduated from Cornell University
, and returned to take positions helping run the family operations. Adolph Jr. was married to Alice May Kistler at the Kistler home, and the family lived in Denver. Grover and Gertrude Coors were married at the Coors Mansion. Bertha, who became an accomplished equestrienne and safari
hunter, was married to Harold S. Munroe on January 8, 1911 at the Coors Mansion. The couple moved to Mexico
where Harold worked in gold mining operations. Herman Coors married Janet Ferrin and stayed in Golden, and worked in the family's porcelain manufacturing operations. In 1926 he moved to Inglewood, California
where he set up his own porcelain plant, the H.F. Coors Company.
described him as "a genial, accommodating man, and had many friends in Golden, Denver and elsewhere." His oldest daughter married William J. Gilbert and the second married Charles Nitschke.
when he jumped to his death from the hotel window.
Adolph Coors Company
The Golden, Colorado Adolph Coors Company was formerly a holding company controlled by the heirs of founder Adolph Coors. Its principal subsidiary is the Coors Brewing Company. It was founded in 1873....
in Golden, Colorado
Golden, Colorado
The City of Golden is a home rule municipality that is the county seat of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States. Golden lies along Clear Creek at the edge of the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush on 16 June 1859, the mining camp was...
in 1873.
Early years
Adolph Coors was born in BarmenBarmen
Barmen is a former industrial metropolis of the region of Bergisches Land, Germany, which in 1929 with four other towns was merged with the city of Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. Barmen was the birth-place of Friedrich Engels and together with the neighbouring town of Elberfeld founded the...
in Rhenish Prussia
Rhine Province
The Rhine Province , also known as Rhenish Prussia or synonymous to the Rhineland , was the westernmost province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia, within the German Reich, from 1822-1946. It was created from the provinces of the Lower Rhine and Jülich-Cleves-Berg...
on February 4, 1847, the son of Joseph Kuhrs (c1820-1862) and Helena Hein (c1820-1862). He was apprenticed at age thirteen to the book and stationery store of Andrea & Company in nearby Ruhrort
Ruhrort
Ruhrort is a district within the German city of Duisburg situated north of the confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine, in the western part of the Ruhr area...
from November 1860 until June 1862. His mother died on April 2, 1862. The Kuhrs family moved to Dortmund
Dortmund
Dortmund is a city in Germany. It is located in the Bundesland of North Rhine-Westphalia, in the Ruhr area. Its population of 585,045 makes it the 7th largest city in Germany and the 34th largest in the European Union....
, Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...
. In July 1862, Adolph was apprenticed for a three year period at a brewery owned by Henry Wenker in Dortmund. He was charged a fee for his apprenticeship, so he worked as a bookkeeper to pay for it. His father died on November 24, 1862. Orphaned, Adolph completed his apprenticeship and continued to work as a paid employee at the Wenker Brewery until May 1867. He then worked at breweries in Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, and Uelzen
Uelzen
Uelzen is a town in northeast Lower Saxony, Germany, and capital of the county of Uelzen. It is part of the Hamburg Metropolitan Region, a Hanseatic town and an independent municipality....
in Germany. Early in 1868, he immigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He sailed from Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and then moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
arriving on May 30, 1868. His name was changed from "Kuhrs" to "Coors". He worked in the spring as a laborer, and during the summer he worked as a brewer. In the fall and winter he worked as a fireman, loading coal into the firebox of a steam engine. In the spring and summer of 1869 he worked as an apprentice bricklayer and a stone cutter. He became foreman of John Stenger's brewery on August 11, 1869, in Naperville, Illinois
Naperville, Illinois
Naperville is a city in DuPage and Will Counties in Illinois in the United States, voted the second best place to live in the United States by Money Magazine in 2006. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 141,853. It is the fifth largest city in the state, behind Chicago,...
, about 35 miles west of Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. He resigned from Stenger's brewery on January 22, 1872, and arrived in Denver in April. He worked in Denver as a gardener for a month, then on May 1, 1872 he purchased a partnership in the bottling firm of John Staderman. In the same year he bought and assumed control of the entire business.
Golden Brewery
On November 14, 1873, Coors and the Denver confectioner Jacob SchuelerJacob Schueler
Jacob Schueler was a confectionery proprietor in the city of Denver during the early 1870s. Born in Germany's Rhineland in 1835, he immigrated to America in 1850, and arrived in Denver as one of the Pikes Peakers in 1861. He soon went to serve in the American Civil War and returned...
purchased the abandoned Golden City Tannery and converted it to the Golden Brewery. By February 1874 they were producing beer for sale. In 1880 Coors purchased Schueler's interest, and the brewery remained majority family-owned . When Prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
was begun in Colorado in 1916, he converted his brewery to make malted milk. The company also manufactured porcelain and ceramic products made from clay mined in Golden. The Coors Porcelain division has since split off, and is now known as CoorsTek
CoorsTek
CoorsTek, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer of technical ceramics, semiconductor tooling, plastic tubing, medical devices and other industrial products. CoorsTek’s headquarters and primary factories are located in Golden, Colorado, USA, near the foothills west of Denver. The company is...
.
Immediate Family
On April 12, 1879 Adolph Coors married Louisa Webber, the daughter of the superintendent of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad maintenance shops. They were married at the Coors home on the brewery grounds. Adolph and Louisa raised three sons and three daughters to adulthood, with two children dying in infancy. Louise was born on March 2, 1880, and was nicknamed Lulu among her many friends. Their second child was Augusta, born in 1881, and was known by her nickname of Gussie. The fifth and third surviving child was Adolph Coors Jr.Adolph Coors II
Adolph Herman Joseph Coors, Jr. was the son of Adolph Coors and the second President of Coors Brewing Company....
, on January 12, 1884. Bertha Coors was born on June 24, 1886, and Grover C. Coors was born in 1888. The last addition to the family, Herman Frederick Coors, came on July 24, 1890, when while the family was on vacation to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
.
All of the daughters attended the Wolcott School for Girls in Denver. Louise married Henry F. Kugeler at the Coors Mansion, and Augusta married Herbert E. Collbran there on October 5, 1905. At the time, Transcript editor George West wrote "Miss Coors is a native Golden girl and proud of it. She is pretty and talented, and by her universally pleasant and courteous demeanor has endeared herself to all the people of her native town." She and her husband moved to Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
, where Herbert was the son of the nation's transportation advisor and held an important position with the governmental railways. It is possible that with the advent of international shipping of Coors beer, which began in Korea in 1908, was directly related to the family's presence there. Adolph Jr., Grover and Herman all graduated from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, and returned to take positions helping run the family operations. Adolph Jr. was married to Alice May Kistler at the Kistler home, and the family lived in Denver. Grover and Gertrude Coors were married at the Coors Mansion. Bertha, who became an accomplished equestrienne and safari
Safari
A safari is an overland journey, usually a trip by tourists to Africa. Traditionally, the term is used for a big-game hunt, but today the term often refers to a trip taken not for the purposes of hunting, but to observe and photograph animals and other wildlife.-Etymology:Entering the English...
hunter, was married to Harold S. Munroe on January 8, 1911 at the Coors Mansion. The couple moved to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
where Harold worked in gold mining operations. Herman Coors married Janet Ferrin and stayed in Golden, and worked in the family's porcelain manufacturing operations. In 1926 he moved to Inglewood, California
Inglewood, California
Inglewood is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, southwest of downtown Los Angeles. It was incorporated on February 14, 1908. Its population stood at 109,673 as of the 2010 Census...
where he set up his own porcelain plant, the H.F. Coors Company.
Siblings
Adolph Coors is known to have had at least two siblings, a sister and younger brother William Coors, who was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1849. William followed his brother to America in 1870 and took the same respelling of the family name. He made his way to Chicago where he made a good living as a cabinet maker, and arrived in Golden by the mid-1870s. He took a good position of employment at his brother's brewery, in which employ he remained for the rest of his life. Following further in his brother's footsteps, William married Louisa's sister Mary in 1881, and ten years later moved to Denver where he had charge of the Coors interests in that city. The couple had three daughters, two of whom were Mattie and Helena. William Coors died on December 30, 1923 and is buried at the Golden Cemetery. Upon his death the Colorado TranscriptGolden Transcript
The Golden Transcript is the second oldest newspaper in Colorado, behind the Central City Register-Call. The Transcript is also the oldest media outlet of the Denver metropolitan area. It is published by Mile High Newspapers in Golden, Colorado....
described him as "a genial, accommodating man, and had many friends in Golden, Denver and elsewhere." His oldest daughter married William J. Gilbert and the second married Charles Nitschke.
Death by suicide
He took his own life on June 5, 1929, at the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach, VirginiaVirginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay...
when he jumped to his death from the hotel window.
See also
- Adolph Coors IIIAdolph Coors IIIAdolph Coors III was the grandson of Adolph Coors and heir to the Coors beer empire.-Biography:He was born on January 12, 1916 and attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire...
- Pete CoorsPete CoorsPeter Hanson Coors is a U.S. businessman and entrepreneur. He currently is the Chairman of the Molson Coors Brewing Company and Chairman of MillerCoors, a joint operating venture, announced October 9, 2007 and completed June 30, 2008. Molson Coors headquarters are located in Colorado and...
- August Anheuser Busch, Sr.August Anheuser Busch, Sr.August Anheuser Busch, Sr. was an American brewing magnate who served as the President and CEO of Anheuser-Busch from 1913-1934. His father, Adolphus Busch founded the company.-Biography:...
, brewer who also took his own life