Charles Francis Colcord
Colcord's life spanned the American Civil War, the taming of the west, the cattle drives, the Land Runs, the Wright brothers' flight, World War I, Wiley Post, Will Rogers and Charles Lindbergh, the Roaring Twenties, the Great Depression, and the transition of Oklahoma City from a frontier prairie to a booming metropolis with skyscrapers, oil fields and airplanes.
On December 30, 1934, a resolution adopted by the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce stated, "Affluence came to him but left unspoiled his native gentleness and simplicity.
His father was a son of Charles B. Colcord and Louisa Metcalfe Bristow with deep roots in Kentucky, as attested by his brother's biography:
The father of our subject settled in 1813 at Middletown, this county, from the State of New Hampshire, he being then about twenty-seven years of age, and soon after engaged in business at that place with an older brother who accompanied him to his new settlement.
Their spirit of business adventure, however, was not to be satisfied in a village traffic, but they engaged in extensive speculation which proved remunerative, C. G.[sic] Colcord being the first man who ever took a drove of mules to New Orleans by land from Bourbon County; he was married to Miss Metcalf in 1824, and by that union were born six children, only two of whom grew to maturity; viz: William R., born Nov. 26, 1827; married in the vicinity of Middletown, now residing in Wichita, Ka., where he is extensively engaged in the stock business.
Our subject was born Sept. 17, 1829; received a liberal education, attending the Western Military Institute in 1849 and '50, then located at Middletown; one of his preceptors and intimate friends being the Honorable James G. Blaine, Secretary of State.
Mr. Colcord is an enterprising, thrifty farmer, with 432 acres of choice land, about eight miles from Paris, which he has well stocked, and conducts in a successful manner.
For much of his young childhood his father was an officer fighting for the Confederacy in the Civil War, and moved his family to Georgia and New Orleans.
After the war, the senior Colcord sold his interest in the family farm to his brother and used the proceeds to purchase a sugar plantation north of New Orleans.
When son Charley, then about ten, contracted malaria from a nearby swamp, his father sent him to the ranch owned by his friend Charles Sanders near Banquete, Texas, so that he could recover.
When W. R. Colcord opened a ranch near Corpus Christi, Texas, to raise horses, Charley ran away to work as a cowboy.
In 1876 W. R. teamed up with Hines Clark to trail 1200 mares north to pens in the Cherokee Outlet; Charley was among the half-dozen riders.
[5]In 1879, outlaws John Middleton and Henry Brown left Billy the Kid's gang and stayed at Colcord's camp in the Cherokee Outlet for several weeks.
But by then, reacting to allegations of bribery and fraud, President Cleveland voided the leases that were never approved by the federal government, and ordered all cattle removed from the reservation within forty days.
[7] An unusually dry summer in 1885 was followed by a bad winter; nearly 85 percent of the cattle died during an 18-month span, reducing Pool assets to a mere 13,000 head.
Bland drilled a successful well in 1901 north of Red Fork, 2,500 people were attracted to the area, including Colcord and Robert T. Galbreath who had been partners in a real estate venture.
A close friend of his, Charles Urschel, was kidnapped by Machine Gun Kelly and his gang and held for ransom, not uncommon in those Depression days.
[1] He was also a member of the Oklahoma Consistory of the Valley of Guthrie, the Indian Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and the Golf and Country Club.
[14] He died in 1934 at age 75 at his Delaware County ranch; with a police honor guard, his body lay in state in the rotunda of the Oklahoma Historical Society building.
Over her family's objections, Charles Francis Colcord married Harriet Scoresby (August 1865, Iowa – June 26, 1951, Oklahoma City), in Hutchinson, Kansas on February 9, 1885.
I talked to Harriet's brother-in-law, who lived in Barber County, Kansas and he told me the whole family was opposed to me because people had exaggerated reports about me.
[18] The building survived Oklahoma City's Urban Renewal efforts and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Colcord's three-story pillared Georgian home with its beveled-glass windows, mirrored ballroom, and carriage house was demolished in 1965 and replaced by a now-failed insurance company building.
