Pueblo County Biographies

Pueblo County, Colorado
JOHN GIBBON WOLF, M. D.

Contributed by Karen Mitchell.

Dr. John Gibbon Wolf, a most eminent and successful physician of Pueblo, who as chief of the department of health and as city physician has done much to decrease the death rate in contagious diseases and prevent the further spread of disease, certainly deserves the commendation and gratitude of the general public for what he has accomplished. Colorado is proud to number him among her native sons. He was born in Boulder on the 21st of July, 1882, and is a son of William W. and Anna (Gibbon) Wolf. The family came to Colorado in 1880, at which time the father became established in business in Boulder, where he still resides. In the family were four sons and two daughters. Dr. Wolf, who is the third in order of birth, spent his youthful days under the parental roof and pursued his early education in the public and high schools of Boulder, passing through consecutive grades to his graduation. He afterward entered the University of Colorado at Boulder and there pursued his course in medicine, being graduated with the class of 1906, at which time his professional degree was conferred upon him. He put his theoretical knowledge to the practical test by serving as interne in the Minnequa Hospital in 1906-7. He afterward had charge of the dispensary for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and on the 1st of January, 1912, was called to his present position as chief of the department of health and city physician of Pueblo. During his incumbency in this office he has reorganized the city work and the results of his labors are most gratifying, for he has largely decreased the death rate in contagious diseases, which has been very high because of the large foreign element in the city—an element knowing little of health laws and doing practically nothing to prevent the spread of disease, which had been promoted through prevailing unsanitary conditions. Dr. Wolf has entered upon a system of public education in this respect, demanding the enforcement of the laws, and his labors have been most resultant and valuable. In addition to his work in this connection he is also physician for the Santa Fe and Missouri Pacific Railroad Companies and he is prominent in clinical and pathological societies. On the 15th of June, 1910, Dr. Wolf was united in marriage to Miss Ethel Stewart and to them have been born two children, John G. and Francis Leonard. The religious faith of the family is that of the Catholic church. Dr. Wolf was for a short time a member of the National Guard at Cripple Creek and served as a member of the exemption board for his district. He received a captain's commission in the spring of 1918 and after a brief stay in the base hospital at Camp Travis, San Antonio, Texas, he was ordered abroad and is now rendering service in a base hospital, "somewhere in France." Verily it is true that the duties of a physician and surgeon in this war of unprecedented magnitude are most arduous and exhausting and Dr. Wolf gives his best to "our boys over there," devoting his knowledge and skill to the great cause of world democracy constituting the policy of this government and representing the ideal of this nation. He is a man of high professional attainments, prominent as a physician and surgeon enjoying in large measure the goodwill, confidence and high regard of professional colleagues and contemporaries. History Of Colorado Illustrated Volume II Chicago The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company 1918

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