[2] In December 1835, he came west to Milwaukee, following his eldest brother George B. Reed, who had traveled there the prior year.
Reed was part of the committee sent to escort the governor to Milwaukee from Iowa, where he had been residing prior to his appointment.
[2] In the summer of 1837, Curtis went further west, with another older brother Orson Reed, to what is now the town of Summit, Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
He initially owned about 300 acres of land there, but sold or gifted most of it away to encourage the development of the village, earning him the nickname the "father of Menasha".
During the 1853 legislative session, he served alongside his brother, Orson Reed, who represented Waukesha County.
Reed devoted much of the rest of his life to the growth and development of Menasha and the Fox River valley, encouraging and recruiting new businesses.
He was also a director of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, which connected Lake Superior to Milwaukee, by way of Oshkosh and Menasha.
[1] Curtis Reed died in Menasha, Wisconsin in 1895,[4][5] and was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Neenah.
The Reed family were descendants of the colonist Philip Reade, who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in the 1660s.