Pueblo-El Paso County CO Archives Biographies.....Belcher, Reason J. 1863 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 January 5, 2009, 1:28 am

Author: Wilbur Fiske Stone (1918)

REASON J. BELCHER.

    Forty-six years have passed since Reason J. Belcher came to Colorado and he
has been an interested witness of the growth and development of the state from
pioneer times to the present. He is now a leading and influential business man
of Pueblo, where he is well known as the president of the Mountain Ice & Coal
Company. He was born in Cass county, Missouri, on the 2nd of March, 1863, and is
a son of A. J. and Sally Ann (Judy) Belcher. The family came to Colorado in
1872, making their way across the plains to Colorado Springs, where the parents
continued to make their home until called to their final rest, their remains
being interred in a cemetery of that city. The father had served with a company
of volunteers from Missouri during the Civil war and after the removal to the
west he took active and helpful part in promoting the pioneer development and
progress of the community in which he located.

    Reason J. Belcher well remembers the trip to this state when he was a lad of
nine years. He rode with a bunch of cattle over the plains as the family slowly
made their way to their destination, reaching Pueblo on the 8th of July, 1872.
The family home was established at Colorado Springs and he pursued his education
in a private school there, for the public school system had not yet been
instituted. He afterward became a cowboy on the plains and also a stage driver
and he engaged in teaming in the early boom days of Leadville and of Cripple
Creek. There are few phases of pioneer development and experience in Colorado
with which he is not familiar. He owned hauling outfits and contracted to haul
ore from the mines of Leadville and Cripple Creek to the railroad and he drove
stage for the firm of Barlow & Sanderson. He has been in nearly all of the early
boom camps and there are few events which figure prominently on the pages of
Colorado's history in the early days with which he is not familiar.

    Mr. Belcher took up his abode in Pueblo in 1897, at which time he
established his present business as a dealer in ice and coal. He first shipped
ice from Lake George and from a small beginning has developed a business of
extensive proportions. Originally he had but two teams, this being all that was
needed to care for the trade. Something of the growth of his patronage is
indicated in the fact that he now employs eighty men and utilizes forty head of
horses and six auto trucks. The company has its own Ice plant and is now
shipping much of its product. In the coal trade, too, the company has secured a
liberal patronage and in fact the business is one of the foremost commercial
enterprises of Pueblo.

    On the 16th of June, 1889, Mr. Belcher was united in marriage to Miss Rose
I. Long and their children are: Mark R., who is now with his father in the
wholesale ice cream business; Stella I.; Lynn L., who is employed at the plant;
and a daughter, Edith E., who was the oldest and died at the age of nineteen years.

    Fraternally Mr. Belcher is connected with the Woodmen of the World and the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is also a member of the Commerce Club
and belongs to the Colorado State Association of Retail Coal Dealers. He greatly
enjoys hunting, fishing and other forms of outdoor life when leisure permits him
to indulge therein. The greater part of his time and attention is concentrated
upon his business affairs and his intelligently directed industry, firm purpose
and unabating energy are substantial factors in his growing success, which has
placed him among the prosperous men of the state.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

HISTORY OF COLORADO

ILLUSTRATED
VOLUME II
CHICAGO
THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY
1918

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