Routt County CO Archives Biographies.....Woolery, Harvey October 31, 1847 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net March 25, 2006, 11:47 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

     One of western Colorado’s most progressive, successful and highly esteemed
ranchmen and stock-growers, and a leading citizen of Routt county, Harvey
Woolery has been the architect of his own fortune and is essentially a self-made
man.  He was born in Cooper county, Missouri, on October 31, 1847, and is the
son of Francis E. and Frances (Jones) Woolery, the former a native of Missouri
and the latter of Kentucky.  The parents were successful farmers who ended their
days in Cooper county, Missouri, where the father died on January 9, 1899, and
the mother on December 20, 1901.  Both were Baptists in church relations for
many years, and the father was a Democrat in politics.  They had a family of six
children, four of whom are living, Harvey, Joseph M., William and Mrs. Newman
Cordry.  Owing to the turbulent conditions of the border country in which Harvey
passed his childhood and youth just prior to and during the Civil war, the
schools were almost closed for years and the opportunities for education were
next to nothing.  Mr. Woolery shared this hardship with other children of the
region, and like the most of them depended on the rugged but thorough school of
experience for his training for the battle of life, supplementing its lessons
with a measure of academic instruction procured by his own efforts after the
close of the war.  He remained at home until he reached the age of twenty-one,
then engaged in farming and raising stock on his own account in his native
county, passing six years in this occupation there.  At the end of that period
he moved to Bates county, in the same state, and there he farmed two years. In
the spring of 1880 he became a resident of Colorado, and until the summer of
1881 was employed in construction work on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad. 
When he completed his contract with the railroad company, he moved by teams to
Leadville, much of the journey being through a newly settled and undeveloped
country, and every mile of the way was beset with difficulties and dangers. 
After remaining at Leadville three months he traveled by the same means and with
similar experiences to Steamboat Springs in Routt county, mostly through an
unsettled country with only poor roads and without bridges and contending with
obstacles to his progress that would have disheartened and driven back a less
resolute spirit.  He arrived at Steamboat Springs on September 30, 1881, and
became one of the very few early settlers in that neighborhood, taking up one
hundred and sixty acres of land by pre-emption.  To this he has since added
until he has now four hundred and forty acres, of which he can cultivate four
hundred acres.  On this land he has made all the improvements which add so much
to its value at this time, and brought about the changes from its unprofitable
gayety in wild sage brush to its present state of fruitfulness in the products
of cultivation and systematic husbandry.  Hay and Shorthorn cattle are produced
on an extensive basis and form the chief source of revenue, but grain and
vegetables are also extensively raised.  In addition to his ranch Mr. Woolery
owns real estate at Boulder, this state, and at Steamboat Springs.  He was
married on November 2, 1871, to Miss Sarah C. Murphy, like himself, a native of
Cooper county, Missouri.  They have had eight children, one of whom, Aubrey P.,
is dead and seven are living, Mrs. Edward Tullinger, Wyan E., Oscar A., Mrs.
Charles E. Baer, Eugene T., the first white boy born in Routt county, Edna M.
and Emery.  Mrs. Woolery belongs to the Presbyterian church, Mrs. Charles E.
Baer to the Congregational church.  The ranch is three miles west of Steamboat
Springs.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

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