Source: June 3, 1921 Eagle Valley Enterprise, Eagle, Colorado

PIONEER COLORADO MERCHANT DEAD

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James W. Dowd of Red Cliff
Died in Chicago Following Operation

James W. Dowd, for many years one of the leading business men and merchants of Eagle county, living at Red Cliff, died in a hospital at Chicago, Thursday, May 26, following a surgical operation. Mr. Dowd had been in poor health for a long time, and had been under the doctor's care in Denver for several months before going to Chicago to submit to an operation.

James William Dowd was born in Atchison, Kan. August 22, 1861, and came to what was then Colorado Territory the next year, his parents moving to this then remote frontier region. His first mercantile venture was at Kokomo, where he and his brother, J. B. Dowd, conducted the Ten Mile Store for a number of years. Later the brothers moved to Red Cliff where the deceased conducted the Red Cliff and Gilman Mercantile Company. Selling out his Red Cliff business later he moved to the lower Grand Valley, but in 1914 returned to Red Cliff and established the J. W. Dowd Mercantile Co., of which business he remained the active head up to the time of his death. "Jim" Dowd was a born merchant and successful business man. Of a restless, active disposition, he was always busy with some business venture, and would always extend credit for a "grub stake" to any miner with a likely prospect. He was active in the affairs of the county and state, being very prominent in the councils of the Democratic party, having served Eagle county in the state legislature one term, being elected on the Democratic ticket.

The body arrived in Leadville from Chicago last Sunday and early Monday morning requiem high mass was celebrated for the deceased at the Church of the Annunciation in Leadville. From the church the cortege proceeded to the Colorado and Southern depot where the funereal party, consisting of relatives and friends of Red Cliff and lodge associates of Leadville, boarded a train for Kokomo. Arriving in Kokomo the services were taken in charge by members of the Leadville Elk's lodge, of which the deceased was a member, and the body was laid to rest in the little cemetery on the mountainside overlooking the scene of his earlier business activities in the once bustling mining camp, beside that of his mother.

James Dowd helped to make the history of Colorado in the days when the great empire known as the Centennial state was being formed, and no true chronicle of the political and business activities of this part of the state for the past generation will omit mention of the part he took during those stirring times.

He is survived by the widow and two sons, John and Lee, besides many other relatives.

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