EDITOR’S NOTE: In preparation for the Town of Meeker’s 140th birthday in September, we are publishing the histories of the Town’s founders who’s names are listed at the White River Museum and on the plaque on the boulder in front of the courthouse. If you would like to participate in a Founders’ Day celebration (basically a giant birthday party) on Sept. 27 please contact [email protected] or call 970-878-4017.
John Charles Davis was a member of the Meeker Townsite Company. He was not at Meeker in 1883. John, known as “Jack” was a manager at one of the Hugus & Company stores at the time. I found no mention that he worked at the Meeker branch. Davis and Hugus saw the stock as a good investment. It did not pan out that way. The land under Meeker was tied up by the Federal government for years. Both Hugus and Davis had ties to the White River valley long before Meeker and Camp on the White River existed.
John C. Davis was among the supply wagons ambushed at the 1879 Milk Creek battle. John was not a military man. However, the Ute bullet that hit him didn’t know that. John survived the long battle and his name is on the Milk Creek monument.
John C. Davis was born March 14, 1852, in Tipperary County, Ireland, to Henry Charles Davis and Elenor Wilson Sanger who were both English. John was educated in England and immigrated to the States in 1871, landing in Wyoming territory in March of 1872.
In the 1880 Wyoming Census, he was listed as single, employed as a bookkeeper at Ft. Steele, Carbon County. He married Ella Mary Castiday Jan. 9, 1883, in Carbon County. A. C. Moulton, who became manager of the Meeker branch of Hugus & Company later married Ella’s sister Ada Castiday.
When J.W. Hugus died in 1901, John was the general manager and majority stockholder of Hugus & Company. He was a very prosperous man with huge house in Denver, a wife and four children.
Fate cut his life short when he died in a highly publicized train wreck at Dotsero Junction on the Denver & Rio Grande Jan. 15, 1909, when two trains collided.
Newspaper accounts listed 21 people dead and 37 injured. Engineer Gustov Olson was blamed for not holding his engine at Dotsero until the second train had passed. The engineer of the second train was Gustov’s brother, Sigmund Olson. Both were badly injured, but lived.
The Rocky Mountain News declared it to be the worst wreck in DR&G history. A.C. Moulton accompanied the body back to Denver for services. John C. Davis is buried in Fairmont Cemetery, Denver.
Sources: Coloradohistoricalnewspapers.org; Rocky Mountain News; Souvenir History of J. W. Hugus and Company; Rio Blanco Historical Society; Photo comparisons White River Museum, Meeker and Museum of Northwest Colorado. My thanks to both museums; Meeker Herald