BYERS, Henry

HENRY BYERS Obituary w/photo in Denver Post 4may1930 p.19 sec.1. Henry immigrated to the U.S. in 1869 and it is said that he arrived in Colorado in 1875. The earliest record in which he can be found is the 1885 State of Colorado Census for Arapahoe County. It shows he was 25 years old, married, and born in Germany; wife Mary is 22 years old and also born in Germany; son Frank is but a year old and was born in Colorado. The special Federal census of Colorado in 1885 shows he and wife and baby Frank living in Denver west of Platte River. He had interests in the mining industry at Leadville, CO, during its heyday (which ended with the 1893 silver crash) and sometime later moved to Denver where he became an active member of St. Joseph's Polish Catholic Church in Globeville. He is recorded in Denver's 1890 city directory as a laborer at the Grant Smelter residing in Bend's Addition. A man named Joseph Byers, a dairyman, also resided in Bend's Addition and it seems as though this person might have been Henry's father. Joseph apparently died prior to the 1900 census. The 1900 city directory lists Henry as a dairyman who resided at the ne corner of Emerson and 8th in Globeville. His son Frank was also in the milk business working for him and resided at the same address. Henry's obituary states he was in the dairy business at an early period in his Denver residency. Dorothy McLeod had among her possessions, an old handmade antique cow bell which had something to do with the early history of her family but it is not know if the bell came from the dairy or from the ranch belonging to Henry G. Smith. Family oral tradition suggests that at one time Henry lived in a Polish enclave in the east; possibly in Minnesota or Wisconsin and perhaps this is where the family acquired their knowledge of the dairy business.