Spencer Penrose

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Spencer Penrose (middle) stands in a mining exchange in Cripple Creek, Colorado, 1895.

Spencer Penrose (November 2, 1865–December 7, 1939[1]) was a businessman, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and philanthropist at the turn of the 20th century. Although principally in and around Colorado Springs, his interests included concerns in Arizona, Utah, and Kansas.

History

He was born into a prominent Philadelphia family of Cornish descent[2] to Richard Alexandria Fullerton and Sarah Hanna Penrose, and was brother to Boies Penrose and Richard Penrose.[3] In 1886, he graduated last in his class from Harvard. [4] Penrose started as a ladies-man and an adventurer who became a successful entrepreneur in the gold fields of nearby Cripple Creek in the 1890s as a manager of the local real estate office of Charles L. Tutt, a general supplies' merchant and gold assayer; his great fortune evolved from his associations with his geologist brother's gold and silver mine in the Commonwealth mine in Pearce, Arizona, and in his prescient purchase of Utah property that held enormous reserves of low grade copper ore that was extracted via a new metallurgical technique developed by one of his engineers in his Cripple Creek associations.

Julie Penrose

Born Julia Villiers Lewis August 12, 1870 in Detroit, Michigan, her father, Alexander Lewis, was a prominent businessman and served as the Mayor of Detroit in 1876 and 1877.

Julie married James “Jim” Howard McMillan, son of U.S. Senator and Michigan Car Company owner James McMillan (politician) (1838–1902) on June 18, 1890. Julie and Jim had two children, Gladys (1892) and James II (1894). Julie and Jim, considered wealthy, moved to Colorado in hope the climate would cure his tuberculosis. James II died from appendicitis on April 3, 1902, and her husband died tuberculosis on of May 9, 1902, leaving her a widow.

Penrose and Julie were married in London on April 28, 1906. She was an enthusiast of performing and visual arts, and original founder of the Central City Opera (1932) and Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center.[5]

Business and other ventures

Spencer Penrose was an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with vast holdings in many companies. He has contributed many of the most prominent landmarks in Colorado Springs. Penrose used his vast amounts of money to invest in other national mineral concerns and financed construction of the Broadmoor Hotel (1918), the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo (1926), the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun, the Pikes Peak Highway (1916), the Glockner-Penrose Hospital, and established the El Pomar Foundation (1937), which still oversees many of his contributions in Colorado Springs today.

Penrose companies and investments

Companies he founded, was a director, or had a major interest in:[6][7][8]

  • U.S. Reduction and Refining Company
  • U.S. Sugar And Land Company (The Garden City Company)
  • Garden City Western Railway (founded in 1916)
  • The Garden City Irrigation And Power Company (changed to Southwest Kansas Power in 1957)
  • Utah Copper Company (later the Kencott Copper Company)
  • Beaver Land & Irrigation Company
  • Beaver, Penrose & Northern Railway; (part of Beaver, Land and Irrigation Company) closed in 1919
  • Community of Penrose Colorado[9]
  • Consolidated Copper Company
  • Chlno Copper Company
  • Gila Copper Company
  • First National Bank of Denver, Colorado; Owner/director
  • First Nat. Bank, Colorado Springs, Colorado; Director
  • Colorado Title & Trust Co. (Colorado Springs)
  • Cripple Creek Central R.H.
  • Grand Junction & Grand River Valley Ry.
  • Colorado National Life Assurance Company
  • Schaeffer Dam and Lake Mc Neil
  • Lake McKinney (constructed in 1906-07)
  • Pen-Mac hotel
  • Penrose Pioneer paper (Penrose Press)

Business partners

  • Charles Leaming Tutt
  • Charles M. MacNeil

MacNeal, Tutt, and Penrose were partners in the Utah Copper Company as well as The Garden City Company. In eighty-seven years of its history The Garden City Company had only four families involved: MacNeil. Penrose, Charles Tutt, Russell T. Tutt, and William J. Hybl who is the lead trustee of the El Pomar Foundation.

Financial Institutions

Penrose entered the banking industry, along with business partner Charles MacNeil, with the purchase of the First National Bank of Denver from David Halliday Moffat, and becoming a director of the International Trust Company of Denver.[10]

Charities

Spence and Julie were active any many charities to include

  • El Pomar Foundation
  • Penrose Hospital (formerly Glockner Sanatorium)
  • The Pikes Peak Chapter of the American Red Cross

El Pomar Foundation

El Pomar Foundation was established in 1937 by Spencer and Julie Penrose to enhance, encourage and promote the current and future well being of the people of Colorado through grant making and community stewardship. The Foundation's name "El Pomar" is old Spanish for "The Orchard", derived from the Penrose home situated on an apple orchard.

Based in Colorado Springs, El Pomar Foundation is one of the largest and oldest private foundations in the Rocky Mountain West, with assets totaling $500 million. El Pomar contributes more than $20 million annually through grants and community stewardship programs to support Colorado nonprofit organizations involved in health, human services, education, arts and humanities, and civic and community initiatives.

Carriage Museum

The Penroses were avid collectors of automobiles, rare carriages, and race cars. These and other historical pieces can be found at the Carriage Museum which is located in Colorado Springs, CO next to the Broadmoor Hotel. The museum is approximately 8,500 square feet (790 m2) and holds the entire lifetime collection of Spencer and Julie Penrose.

The first floor is mainly composed of vintage historic carriages that were used by the Penroses and/or their friends and relatives.

Spencer and Julie are buried in the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun on Cheyenne Mountain, overlooking the Broadmoor Hotel. Mr. Penrose was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2002.

See also

Spencer Penrose Award, given annually to the top coach in NCAA Division I men's ice hockey

References

  1. ↑ Hiegert, Carole (7 April 2008). "Spencer and Julie Penrose". Historical Wall of Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Bristol Elementary School. Retrieved 5 August 2010. "Spencer Penrose was diagnosed with throat cancer and spent his last days gazing at Cheyenne Mountain and the Broadmoor Hotel. He died at 12:50 a.m. on December 7, 1939, at the age of seventy-four." 
  2. ↑ White, G. Pawley, A Handbook of Cornish Surnames.(Penrose mentioned by name)
  3. ↑ History of Colorado, Volume 3 p 792-793- edited by Wilbur Fiske Stone- Retrieved 2012-01-02
  4. ↑ Spencer Penrose; El Pomar, A Foundation for Colorado
  5. ↑ El Pomar history of Julie Penrose- Retrieved 2012-01-12
  6. ↑ Penrose interests- Retrieved 2012-01-12
  7. ↑ The Garden City Company history- Retrieved 2012-01-12
  8. ↑ Schaeffer Dam- Retrieved 2013-01-02
  9. ↑ Penrose community history- Retrieved 2012-01-12
  10. ↑ Trust Companies, Volume 13; p 141 -Retrieved 2013-01-02

Sources

Thomas J. Noel and Cathleen M. Norman: A Pikes Peak Partnership: The Penroses and the Tutts. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2001. xii + 264 pp. ill. ISBN 978-0-87081-609-3.

External links

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