Denver, History of Colorado, BIOS: WENSLEY, Richard (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. 172, 174
photo p. 173


RICHARD WENSLEY.

	Occupying a central place on the stage of commercial activity in 
Denver is Richard Wensley, president and sole owner of the business 
which is conducted under the name of the Bogue-Wensley Lead Company. In 
this connection he has become one of the foremost manufacturers of lead 
pipe and plumbers' supplies, heating and tinners' tools and supplies in 
the west. His business is located at Eighteenth and Blake streets, 
where he has a most modern and substantial manufacturing plant and 
office building, housing a business whose growing Importance has placed 
it among the foremost commercial concerns of the city. Mr. Wensley is 
likewise well known as a representative citizen, deeply interested in 
the welfare and progress of Denver and cooperating heartily in many 
well defined plans for its further promotion. He was born in Albany, 
New York, on the 12th of August, 1872, and is a son of Richard and 
EmelHie (Schoonmaker) Wensley, who were likewise natives of the Empire 
state, where they spent their entire lives. The father engaged in 
contracting and building and was tor a long period actively and 
prominently identified with building operations in New York, where he 
is still living at the age of seventy-six years. His wife, however, 
died in Albany in 1877, when but twenty-six years of age.

	Richard Wensley, their only child, spent his early life in Albany 
and supplemented his public school education by a course in a business 
college. He afterward secured a position in connection with the lumber 
business in Albany, where he remained for several years. On the 
expiration of that period he removed to New York city, where he engaged 
in the manufacture of shoe blacking, but eventually he decided to try 
his fortune in the west, which had had strong attractions for him from 
his early boyhood. He arrived in Denver in January, 1893, and after 
looking around secured a position with L. M. Bogue, who was then 
engaged in the manufacture of plumbers' lead pipe and similar products. 
He obtained the position of office boy and from that minor position 
steadily worked his way upward, each forward step bringing him a 
broader outlook and wider opportunities. He gained valuable experience, 
winning promotion, and learned thoroughly the lessons which each new 
position brought. At one time he drove a delivery wagon for the firm, 
but his responsibilities were increased from time to time and finally 
he was able to purchase an interest in the business and later took over 
the entire plant, which as the result of his able management and 
progressive spirit has been enlarged and rebuilt. This is a close 
corporation. Mr. Wensley is now the sole owner of the Bogue-Wensley 
Lead Company and is its president. This business has grown to large 
proportions under his wise direction and as the result of his 
indefatigable energy. Something of the growth of the trade is indicated 
in the fact that he now has forty-five employes. In the conduct of the 
business he manufactures plumbers' lead pipe, heating apparatus, 
tinners' supplies and hardware specialties and the worth of his output 
ensures a ready sale on the market. He is thoroughly progressive, is 
persistent in purpose, straightforward in his dealings and 
indefatigable in energy.

	On the 1st of July 1903, Mr. Wensley was united in marriage to 
Miss Maude Beauchamp Walker, of Denver, a daughter of Dr. Joseph R. 
Walker, a well known physician, who is now in the government service 
and is the oldest member of the Red Cross Society. Mr. and Mrs. Wensley 
have one child, Maude Emeline, who was born in Denver in 1904 and is 
now attending the Wolcott School for Girls.

	Mr. Wensley is a republican in his political views. He belongs to 
the Denver Athletic Club, the Denver Country Club, the Lakewood Country 
Club and the Civic and Commercial Association. He likewise has 
membership in the Rotary Club and the Denver Motor Club. Fraternally he 
is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and in 
Masonry he has taken the degrees of the York Rite and has attained the 
thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite. He is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal church. His life has ever been actuated by high and 
honorable principles and the manly course which he has followed has 
gained for him the unqualified confidence and regard of all with whom 
he has been brought in contact. Moreover, his career should serve to 
inspire and encourage others, showing that success and an honored name 
may be won simultaneously.