Pueblo County, Colorado
J. K. SMILEY

Contributed by Karen Mitchell.

J. K. Smiley is the son of a grain speculator of Latrobe, Westmoreland County, Penn., where he was born on the 19th day of February, 1846. At the Brothers' Loretta College, a Catholic college in Latrobe, he graduated in 1863, and the same year secured a situation as salesman with the large wholesale hardware firm of Linsay, Sterrit & Co., of Pittsburgh, Penn., with whom he remained until 1865, when, believing that his country needed his services, and that it was his duty to give them, he enlisted in Company H, of the Two Hundred and Eleventh Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers; served one year, and was discharged at the close of the war. As soon as he returned from the army, Messrs. Linsay, Sterrit & Co. urged him to take his old situation with them, an arrangement highly pleasing to him, and adopted by him. His engagement with them as salesman in their warehouse, before his enlistment and after his discharge, covered a period of four years. At the expiration of four years, he was sent out as a traveling salesman, and for a period of between five and six years more he represented the firm in all the cities, towns and villages to which their trade extended. The fame of Colorado's mines attracted his attention, and 1876 witnessed his departure from Pennsylvania and arrival in Leadville, Colo. He mined two years in Leadville, traveled around the State for a time, and finally located in Pueblo, contented to remain there during the remainder of his life.  History of the Arkansas Valley, Colorado O L Baskin & Co., Chicago, 1881



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