George A. Cowles

George A. Cowles (1836 - 1887) was a 19th-century American businessperson, founder of banks, companies, and a railway, and Southern California landowner

He was one of the early business leaders in San Diego and a prominent rancher in San Diego County.

Born April 5, 1836 and raised on a Connecticut farm in Hartford, his father had been the first to manufacture broadcloth in the US. George was placed to work in a local dry goods store at age 14, by the time he left at 21, he had been promoted to first salesman. He went on to start a cotton mill of his own which unfortunately burned a year later.

Cowles became successful in the cotton business as a broker in New York City, moving there when he was 25. That same year he married Jennie Blodgett from Hartford, a girl of 16. He helped organize, and at 30 was the first president of the NY Cotton Exchange.

He retired from the cotton exchange at age 33. During the following year Cowles and his wife traveled the southern states. He next began a manufacturing business producing cotton cloth under government contract using a process he patented. He continued successfully in this venture until 1875.

Cowles and his wife traveled regularly, apparently in part due to her health. In 1870, while touring the South, he contracted malaria in Florida. They traveled several times to California, where Cowles searching for a preferred site to establish a ranch.

The Cowles first visited the San Diego area in 1873, and in 1875 they began making large purchases of ranch land in the El Cajon Valley in San Diego County. After nearly a year of traveling through Europe, including stays at many health resorts, they settled at their El Cajon ranch in 1877 to begin a career in ranching, though he was in noticeably poor health.

Arriving in California wealthy, and with expertise in business, finance, and agriculture, Cowles accomplished much in the ten years before his death in 1887. The property he purchased eventually totaled about 4,000 acres (16 km²) in the El Cajon Valley and comprised two ranch sites about a mile apart.

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