Pueblo County Biographies

Pueblo County, Colorado
ROBERT K. POTTER

Contributed by Karen Mitchell.

Robert K. Potter, vice president and general manager of the Colorado & Kansas Railroad Company, a man of marked executive ability, who through the steps of an orderly progression has reached his present position in connection with the administration of important corporation interests, was born in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania. on the 27th of January, 1852. and is a son of Wellington and Elizabeth (Ellsworth) Potter. The family was established in Nebraska in 1879 and Robert K. Potter, upon the removal to the west, homesteaded in that state. His father lived and died in Nebraska, where he took up his abode in pioneer times, becoming closely identified with the early development and progress of the state. He had served as a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war. participating in many hotly contested engagements, in which he proved his valor and loyalty to the cause that he espoused. Robert K. Potter, spending his boyhood and youth in Pennsylvania, is indebted to the public school system of his native state for the educational opportunities that he enjoyed. He was reared to the occupation of farming, early becoming familiar with the best methods of tilling the soil and caring for the crops, and for many years his time and attention were given to agricultural interests. He was a young man of about twenty-seven years when he removed westward to Nebraska, where he gave much time to farming, bringing his fields under a high state of cultivation. He was also engaged in buying cattle and hogs, but eventually sold his Nebraska interests and removed to Colorado in 1892. After spending ten years in the Cripple Creek district, during which time he was engaged in the sawmill business, he purchased a farm on Beaver creek. which he cultivated for a time but later sold and established his home in the Penrose district. There he also purchased land on Turkey creek and filed on the Teller Reservoir site. With characteristic energy he began the development of the place and soon converted some of the waste land into productive fields, but afterward sold the water rights to Mr. Teller. He still owns the farm, which is pleasantly and conveniently situated about fourteen miles north of Pueblo. Mr. Potter is now connected with the Turkey Creek Stone, Clay & Gypsum Company, which has furnished the stone for some of the finest public buildings in Colorado, also at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, the stone being used in the courthouse there, also in the Union depot at Wichita. Kansas, in the postoffice at Ottawa, Kansas, in the Denver public library and in the Pueblo county courthouse, besides the Santa Fe office building at La Junta, the Perkins Trust Company building at Lawrence, Kansas, the Broadmoor Hotel at Colorado Springs and others of almost equal note. The clay taken out by this company is used all over the United States. Mr. Potter is vice president and general manager of the Colorado & Kansas Railroad Company and he possesses the administrative power and executive force which enable him to carefully control and direct the interests that come under his management in this connection. In all of his business career he has displayed a ready discrimination between the essential and the non-essential, combined with the power to coordinate seemingly diverse interests into a unified and harmonious whole. He has carefully directed his plans and his activities have been most resultant, contributing in marked measure to the welfare and progress of the communities in which he has operated. Mr. Potter was united in marriage to Miss Tillie Burnett, who passed away leaving the following named sons and daughters: Chandler, who is with the United States army as an engineer in France; Lillian; William, and Carrie. Having lost his first wife, Mr. Potter was again married, his second union being with Miss Louise Male. He is a Protestant in religious faith and fraternally is connected with the Masons and the Odd Fellows. He belongs to the Commerce Club and in his political views is a republican. While in Nebraska he took a very prominent part in civic affairs and was one of the organizers of Buffalo county, which he afterward represented in the state legislature, giving careful and thoughtful consideration to the vital questions which came up for settlement in the general assembly. He has always been actuated by a public-spirited devotion to the general good and his cooperation in behalf of any important public project is never sought in vain. At the same time he has carefully managed important business enterprises and has figured prominently in connection with the industrial and financial interests of the state. Especially valuable has been his work in connection with the stone and clay company, an undertaking that in its ramifying business interests is covering a most extensive territory. History Of Colorado Illustrated Volume III Chicago The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company 1918

to the Pueblo County Index Page.