Pueblo County Biographies

Pueblo County, Colorado
GEORGE H. SWEENEY

Contributed by Karen Mitchell.

Among the alert and enterprising business men of Pueblo is numbered George H. Sweeney, who is conducting a real estate and fire insurance agency, in connection with which he has won a large clientage. He ranks among the foremost in this connection and his efforts have been a potent and farreaching force in the upbuilding and improvement of his city. Mr. Sweeney is numbered among the native sons of Pueblo, born on the 3d of November. 1879. His parents were W. H. and Hannah (Peabody) Sweeney, the latter a sister of Governor Peabody. The parents were married in Denver and removed to Pueblo, where Mr. Sweeney for many years engaged in the furniture business, becoming a pioneer in that line of trade in his adopted city, to the upbuilding and commercial success of which he made liberal contribution. Both he and his wife have now passed away. Their family numbered two sons and a daughter. George H. Sweeney, the youngest member of the household, spending his youthful days under the parental roof, began his education in the public schools and, mastering various branches of learning, won promotion from time to time until he became a high school pupil. When his textbooks were put aside he made his initial step in the business world as an employe in the First National Bank of Pueblo and later he became connected with the coal trade in this city. The next change in his business career brought him into the field of real estate, at which time he opened an office in the Thatcher building. He found here a congenial field of labor and has made steady and rapid progress. He now handles most of the large buildings in Pueblo, negotiating many important realty transfers, and he is also a prominent factor in industrial circles of the city as the secretary and treasurer of the Pueblo Foundry & Machine Company, which is controlling a very extensive and important business. In the foundry are employed one hundred and fifty men and their patronage is steadily increasing, constituting a substantial source of Pueblo's prosperity. !n addition to his real estate interests Mr. Sweeney handles fire insurance, of which he writes a large amount annually. On the 8th of January, 1903, Mr. Sweeney was united in marriage to Miss Lucile Newton, a daughter of George A. Newton, the founder of the Newton Lumber Company. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sweeney are widely and favorably known in Pueblo, where their circle of friends is almost coextensive with the circle of their acquaintance. Mr. Sweeney joined the National Guard at a period when his youth would have prohibited him and ran away to join the American troops for service in the Spanish-American war but w.as brought back home. The same spirit of loyalty, however, has characterized him in all the intervening years and he has ever stood stanchly in support of those measures and interests which he believes to be of public benefit. His political allegiance has always been given to the republican party and he is now serving as deputy state bank commissioner, and the affairs of the International Bank of Commerce of Pueblo are in his hands for liquidation. Fraternally he is identified with the Elks and he belongs to the Chamber of Commerce of Pueblo, to the Minnequa Club and Argonaut Club. He is a man of pleasing personality, very popular in Pueblo, his genuine worth winning for him the high and enduring regard of those with whom he has been brought in contact. History Of Colorado Illustrated Volume III Chicago The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company 1918

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