Pueblo County CO Archives Biographies.....Orman, James B. 1848 - 
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 28, 2008, 12:48 am

Author: R. M. Stevenson (1881)

HON. JAMES B. ORMAN.

    This gentleman was born November 4, 1848, in the State of Iowa, at
Muscatine, from which place he removed at an early age to Winterset, Madison
County, and at the age of twelve to attend school from Winterset to Chicago,
Ill. At Chicago he attended school, public and select, as long as he
desired-about four years-and returned to Winterset to extensively farm, deal in
and raise stock on a large farm owned by his father. The next four years was
passed in successful farming and speculation in stock. The information of the
opportunities for business presented by Colorado attracted his attention in
1866, and induced him to close his unsettled business, and take the stage for
Julesburg, Colo. From there he traveled with the mule teams of his brother, W.
A. Orman, to Denver. In the early day of 1866, the shipping into Denver on
wagons nearly all supplies for man and beast used in Colorado, created a
constant demand for freight animals of all descriptions, particularly for heavy
mules and horses, the Mexican mustang, California broncho and Indian kuise, with
which the country was stocked, being too light for serviceable freighters. With
characteristic foresight, he took advantage of this demand, and for several
years he brought large numbers of mules to Denver from Kansas City and St.
Louis, and rapidly disposed of them. Railroad contracting has been his business
for the past twelve years. It is a business for which he is naturally qualified,
and he is as well known by the name of "the railroad contractor" as by the name
of Or-man. He began railroading, in partnership with his brother, by taking
contracts on the Kansas Pacific Railroad, when that road was being built from
Sheridan to Denver, a distance of 230 miles, and helped to complete it into
Denver. He and his brother then began contracting on the Denver & Rio Grande
Railroad. He has been contracting on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad from the
grading of the first mile to the present time. In the different firms of Orman &
Co.; Moore, Carlile, Orman & Co.; Carlile, Orman & Crook, and Orman & Crook, he
has helped to build five-sixths of the main line of the Denver & Rio Grande from
Denver to Leadville, and nearly the whole of all its extensions, which are El
Moro, San Juan, Del Norte and Wagon Wheel Gap; Silver Cliff. Kirber Creek and
Kokomo Extensions, and the Iron Mine Branch, twelve miles out from South
Arkansas to a rich and productive iron mine owned by the railroad company. Orman
& Crook, in June, 1881, bought the interest of the Hon. James N. Carlile in all
railroad contracts they were interested in together, and now carry-on the work
alone, and have added to their other contracts a contract to build fifty miles
of the Kokomo Extension down Blue River. He has accumulated a fortune. He owns a
large number of building lots on the mesa, and on several of them he has built
fine dwellings, which he rents to tenants. A view of his residence is presented
in this volume. He owns stock in the celebrated mineral water artesian well, and
in partnership with his former railroad contracting partner, the Hon. William
Moore, he is putting up the Moore & Orman Block, a large block in South Pueblo.
Mr. Orman has had many public honors thrust upon him. He is Vice President of
the Pueblo Street Railway. He has been City Councilman since the city's
incorporation, and was Representative from Pueblo County to the third State
Legislature, held in 1881. The J. B. Orman Hose No. 1, honored him by giving his
name to their company. The loss of his brother, W. A. Orman, by death, on the
19th of March, 1880, will be a sorrow to his sympathetic nature till his own
occurs. His portrait speaks the energy and ready action he possesses.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

History of the  Arkansas Valley, Colorado
By J. Harrison Mills

O. L. Baskin & Co.
Chicago
1881


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/pueblo/bios/orman160nbs.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cofiles/

File size: 4.5 Kb