Denver-Pueblo-Lake County CO Archives Biographies.....Cooper, William Albanus Logan 1849 - 1908
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Author: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918)

WILLIAM ALBANUS LOGAN COOPER.

    William Albanus Logan Cooper, who through an active life ranked with the
most successful business men of Denver and the most popular, displayed in his
commercial career much of that initiative which makes for leadership. He was
never content with what he had accomplished but, prompted by a laudable
ambition, was continually broadening the scope of his labors and advancing step
by step toward higher things. This was not only true of his business career but
was manifest in the development of his character as well. He was recognized as a
man of most notable generosity and was continually extending a helping hand
where aid was needed.

    Mr. Cooper was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, June 20, 1849, a son of Washington
and Carrie Cooper. He came of Quaker ancestry, being one of the descendants of
the distinguished Doctor Rush. He acquired his primary education in the schools
of his native city and then entered upon a period of travel which was to
culminate in his arrival in Colorado in 1870. During the intervenng period he
visited Mississippi, California, Nevada and other states but did not find a
place which he desired to make his permanent home until he reached Colorado.
With his arrival in Denver he accepted the position of bookkeeper with James
Tynon, one of the pioneers of the state, and remained in his employ until the
Leadville boom was started. He then went to the Leadville district, where he
remained until 1883, giving his attention to the furniture trade as a member of
the firm of Pryor, Hagus & Cooper. He afterward returned to Denver and also
spent one year in Pueblo. Mr. Cooper's identification with the furniture trade
of Denver began in 1885, when he established the Cooper-Hagus Furniture Store
and for a period of ten years enjoyed a business of great extent. Denver at that
time was experiencing a boom and homes were being built everywhere, a condition
which contributed to his very substantial success. In 1895 a change in
partnership led to the adoption of the firm name of Cooper & Powell. Mr. Cooper
continued in the business until his death and was known as an expert authority
on furniture, being an expert judge of wood. He had, too, that ready
appreciation of line and color that enabled him to quickly realize the
attractiveness of a piece of furniture and he brought to his establishment all
that the best manufacturing houses of the country produced.

    Mr. Cooper was twice married. He first wedded Ida Perrin, by whom he had two
children: Marshall L., who married Margaret Scott, of Denver, and is now manager
of the Camhridge Apartment Hotel in Chicago; and Helen, the wife of S. Z.
Silversparre, of Chicago, by whom she has two children, Robert and Eloise. On
the 27th of June, 1890, Mr. Cooper was married to Mrs. Eloise Ingalls Fisk, a
native of the state of New York and a daughter of the Rev. Alfred Ingalls. a
well beloved minister of the Congregational faith in the Empire state. Mrs.
Cooper is a graduate of St. Lawrence University of Canton, New York. At sixteen
years of age she began teaching, receiving a salary of a dollar and seventy-five
cents per week and hoarding 'round among her pupils as was the custom in that
early day. The next year she received two dollars and a quarter per week as
teacher in the same school and the curriculum ranged from the A, B, C's to
botany and algebra. In New York she was married to Arthur William Fisk, a lawyer
who belonged to the well known Fisk family of New York. Mr. and Mrs. Fisk were
among the early settlers of Greeley, Colorado, where they remained two years
amid the primitive conditions of frontier life and then removed to Nevada, where
they resided for seven years. Mr. Fisk there passed away, after which Mrs. Fisk
returned to Greeley, Colorado, and became a teacher in the schools of that city,
with which she was thus connected for seven years. In 1890, in San Francisco, at
the home of her cousin, the mayor, E. P. Pond, she became the wife of W. A. L.
Cooper. By her first marriage Mrs. Cooper became the mother of three children,
two daughters who passed away in early childhood and a son, Arthur W., who is a
musician of San Francisco. Mrs. Cooper had no children by her second marriage
but proved a devoted mother to Mr. Cooper's children, especially close being the
affection between her and the daughter, Helen. Mrs. Cooper has ever been greatly
interested in literature and in religion, her faith being that of the Christian
Science church, of which Mr. Cooper was also a devout follower. For eighteen
years Mrs. Cooper has been an adherent of that church and for eight years taught
in the Sunday school and throughout almost the entire period of her connection
with the church has been a practitioner. She was also the founder of the Denver
Woman's Club and for a long time maintained the organization. Mr. and Mrs.
Cooper were most closely united in their social activities and by tacit
understanding she took the lead in their travels and pleasures, an arrangement
which was highly satisfactory to her husband, this leaving him more leisure for
his husiness affairs and other interests. They were coworkers and Christian
Science readers at the county jail for eighteen months and their influence for
good will long bear fruit, their work being directly beneficial in saving many.

    Mr. Cooper was a man of magnetic personality and made a host of true friends
in Denver, where he passed away Novemher 1, 1908. He was a Mason of high rank.
having attained the Knight Templar degree in the York Rite and the thirty-second
degree in the Scottish Rite. In his life he exemplified the beneficent spirit of
the craft and in every way was loyal to its teachings. His was a most generous
spirit. He remembered the sick with flowers, the needy with clothes and money.
He responded to every call of those who were deserving of assistance and many a
boy has been encouraged and set on the right road through the efforts of Mr.
Cooper. His memory is enshrined in the hearts of all and his example remains as
a blessed benediction to those who knew him.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF COLORADO

ILLUSTRATED

VOLUME III

CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1918



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