Denver, History of Colorado, BIOS: MILLS, William Fitz Randolph (published 1918)
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"History of Colorado", edited by Wilbur Fisk Stone, published by The S. J. 
Clarke Publishing Co. (1918)  Vol. II


p. 308, 310-311
photo p. 309

WILLIAM FITZ RANDOLPH MILLS.

	William Fitz Randolph Mills, succeeding to the mayoralty of 
Denver by reason of his office as manager of improvements and parks for 
the city and county of Denver, has had a notable career, characterized 
by that progress which is the outcome of individual effort 
intelligently directed. Without college training he has constantly 
broadened the field of his usefulness and his high professional 
attainments are indicated in the fact that he was for three years a 
director of the American Mining Congress and for four years a member of 
the directing board of the Colorado Scientific Society. He has been 
closely associated with civic improvements and the question of civic 
development, and marked ability led to his selection for the position 
which he is now so efficiently filling. He was born in New York city, 
September 8, 1856. a son of the late James Bishop Mills, who was also a 
native of New York city and a representative of one of its oldest 
families. The Millses came of French ancestry and the name was 
originally spelled Millais. Two brothers of the name became the 
founders of the American branch of the family, arriving in the new 
world about 1630. James Bishop Mills was a carpenter and builder by 
trade and his last days were spent in Leland, Michigan, where he took 
up his abode about 1865 and passed away in 1866, at the age of fifty 
years. He had married Sarah Martin Crowell, a native of New York city 
and a representative of an old family long connected with New York and 
New Jersey. She was a descendant of the Fitz Randolphs of English 
lineage. By her marriage she became the mother of four children, three 
sons and a daughter, of whom William P. was the second in order of 
birth. Two of the number have passed away, the surviving sister being 
Corinne, the wife of Charles H. Luscomb. of Brooklyn, New York.

	William Fitz Randolph Mills was educated in the public schools of 
New York city but in July, 1867, when not yet eleven years of age, left 
home and removed to Julesburg, Colorado. where he remained for about 
nine months, his father having in the meantime passed away. He traveled 
by the first train from Julesburg, Colorado, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and 
was there employed as a messenger for eight months by the Western Union 
Telegraph Company. While at Cheyenne he became apprenticed to learn 
telegraphy and served in that capacity for about eight months, after 
which he became ill of mountain fever and was sent to Chicago to regain 
his health. On improving he secured a situation in a millinery 
establishment, where he worked for three weeks and for his labor 
received the small pittance of three dollars. This was not only a great 
disappointment to him but necessitated his seeking other means of 
livelihood. On advising his mother of his position and financial 
condition she sent him fifty dollars and he then removed to Muskegon, 
Michigan, where he secured a position as night operator with the 
Western Union Telegraph Company, remaining in that connection for two 
years. Again ill health necessitated a change and he returned to New 
York. Upon the advice of physicians that he remain out-of-doors he 
began selling bread, pies, cakes, etc., from a wagon, spending a year 
in that connection. On the restoration of his health he entered an 
insurance office and in 1881 he became secretary for the Irving Fire 
Insurance Company, in which connection he continued until 1887, when he 
became secretary for the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of New York 
city. He resigned that position in 1888 and returned to the west, 
settling first at Kearney, Nebraska, where he became vice president and 
general manager of the Hamilton Loan & Trust Company. In 1889 he 
arrived in Denver as a representative of that company, with which he 
remained until 1893 or until the widespread financial panic of that 
year. From 1891 until 1893 he was its president. In the latter year he 
entered the brokerage business on his own account, representing eastern 
capital until 1901 and conducting one of the leading brokerage 
establishments in the city. He next purchased the Mining Reporter, 
having become deeply interested in mining, and continued the 
publication of that trade journal until December, 1907, making it a 
leading authority upon the questions of which it treated. At length he 
sold that business and turned his attention in other directions. During 
that period, however, he was a member and director of the Western 
Association of Technical Chemists & Metallurgists, and to cap his 
eminence in that field, he was chosen in 1906 a director of the 
American Mining Congress and served in that capacity until 1909. For a 
number of years he has been an honored member of the American Academy 
of Science, the National Geographic Society, the Colorado Scientific 
Society and the National and Colorado Forestry Associations. It is one 
of the remarkable features of his career that despite the 
incompleteness of his early education he has attained such high 
standing in the organizations into which few but college-bred men are 
able to enter. He also has kept strictly in the line of progress with 
the good roads movement and since 1907 has been an active member of the 
Rocky Mountain Highway Association, while no citizen has been more 
earnest or influential in the broad work of the Denver Chamber of 
Commerce.

	In 1904 Mr. Mills organized the Denver Convention League, became 
its manager and director and so continued until the organization was 
dissolved in 1909. During the period of its existence he took a leading 
part in its operation and in the conduct of various civic matters in 
which Denver became widely advertised for its progressiveness. Since 
1901 he has been a most active member of the Chamber of Commerce, 
served as its secretary in 1908, was its vice president in 1906 and 
1907 and has long been one of its directors. His business activities 
bring him into connection with the Semper Land Company of Denver, of 
which he is the secretary and manager. Along more strictly official 
lines he was identified with the parks and public improvements of the 
city and county of Denver, having on the 17th of May, 1916, assumed the 
duties of manager of improvements and parks, in which he was actively, 
successfully and continuously engaged until May, 1918. His labors in 
this direction have been far-reaching, important and effective, adding 
much to the development of the park system and to the advancement of 
public improvements along various lines. It was the efficiency of his 
public service through long years that led Mayor Speer to select him as 
the most capable man for this office, notwithstanding the fact that 
Mayor Speer was the democratic leader of Denver, while Mr. Mills has 
ever been a stalwart republican. The fact of the matter is that they 
are both of that broad-minded class who in their devotion to the public 
welfare transcend partisanship and place the general good before 
politics. Upon the death of Mr. Speer, Mr. Mills by virtue of the 
office that he was holding in the mayor's cabinet, succeeded to the 
position of chief executive and has entered upon his duties with the 
full determination to carry out the policy and continue the work 
instituted by Mayor Speer for developing Denver's civic center and 
making this the ideal American city.

	On the 25th of January. 1881, Mr. Mills was married in New York 
city to Miss Corwina Rouse, a native of Saratoga, New York, and a 
daughter of John and Hannah M. (Tompkins) Rouse, representatives of old 
and prominent Saratoga families. To them were born eight children: 
Edith R.; Florence, who died in infancy; William F. R., who married 
Ethel Thornburgh and resides in Denver; Jessie E., the wife of George 
R. Painter, of Telluride, Colorado; Corwina R., deceased; Kenneth, who 
died in infancy; Harold G., a resident of Denver; and Donald, who died 
in infancy.

	Politically Mr. Mills is a republican where national questions 
and issues are involved but casts an independent local ballot, 
supporting men and measures best calculated to promote the general 
improvement. He has been very active in support of all plans and 
measures for the general good and has rendered helpful support in civic 
and charitable work. His military record covers ten years' connection 
with the Twenty-second Regiment of the New York National Guard, which 
he joined as a private but was made sergeant, afterward first sergeant 
and later a member of the colonel's staff, so serving during the last 
five years of his connection with the organization. He is a Mason and 
took the degrees of the blue lodge in New York city in 1S81. He took 
the degrees of Scottish Rite Masonry in New York in 1883, became a 
Knight Templar in Denver in 1891 and also a member of the Mystic Shrine 
in Denver in 1889. He is a member of the First Universalist church, of 
which he is serving as treasurer, and he is a director of the Denver 
Motor Club. Starting out in life on his own account at the early age of 
eleven years, he has since been dependent upon his resources and 
efforts for his advancement. The attainment of wealth has never been 
the sole end and aim of his life. He early realized the fact that the 
greatest joy and the greatest success in life conies through the 
stimulus of intellectual effort and he has continually broadened his 
knowledge by reading, study and experience. Upon many subjects having 
to do with mining conditions and with civic projects he is regarded as 
authority and he is interested in all those broad scientific questions 
which mark the progress of the race and the trend of modern thought and 
investigation. Today he is concentrating every effort and thought upon 
carrying out the plans for Denver's improvement and upbuilding 
according to the ideas of Mayor Speer, with whom he was most closely 
associated, "being familiar with all of his plans for Denver's benefit. 
There are many who feel that the interests of the city could not be 
left in safer hands than those of William Fitz Randolph Mills.