Pueblo County Biographies

Pueblo County, Colorado
Reason J. Belcher

Contributed by Maggie Stuart Zimmerman.

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. Extracted from History of Colorado Illustrated Volume II 1918

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