Luther Anderson Cole (November 1, 1812 – June 22, 1880) was an American businessman, Republican politician, and Wisconsin pioneer.

[2] The following spring, he took a schooner, the Supply, on a voyage into the Great Lakes, stopping briefly at Green Bay, then landing at the mouth of the Grand River.

He labored there for about a year building mills and houses at Grand Haven, but decided to look for land to settle on the west side of Lake Michigan.

[2] He worked for the rest of the year as a carpenter and joiner in Milwaukee, but through a friend, made a claim of land to the west at what was then known as Johnson's Rapids—now Watertown, Wisconsin.

Throughout the early years at Watertown, Cole worked to construct several buildings in the settlement, including a saw mill on the land owned by Selvay Kidder.

In 1842, Cole and an associate made an agreement with Kidder to purchase his 750 acres—comprising much of what is now downtown Watertown—agreeing to pay in exchange 1,000,000 feet of timber to be delivered in installments over the next seven years.

[3] At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Cole was appointed brigadier general of the 2nd brigade of Wisconsin militia and assisted in raising volunteers as commissioner of the county enrollment board.

John, who was two years younger, was most extensively connected to his brother in business, eventually taking over one of the two original parcels of land Luther Cole had claimed near Watertown in 1836.