W.A.H. Loveland

William Austin Hamilton Loveland (May 30, 1826 – 1894) was a U.S. railroad entrepreneur and businessman in the late 19th century. An early resident of Golden when it was the capital of the Colorado Territory, he was one of the founders of the Colorado Central Railroad and a principal figure in the early history of Colorado. As president of the Colorado Central, he was instrumental in the expansion of the railroad network into the mining communities of Colorado. For much of the 1870s Loveland waged a fierce struggle with Union Pacific investors for control of the Colorado Central. He also served as Lieutenant Governor of Colorado.

His father was the Rev. Leonard Loveland, a prominent Methodist minister and prisoner of war in the War of 1812. As a young man, Loveland served in the Mexican-American War, serving as a wagonmaster with the Illinois Volunteers. Serving in the battles of Veracruz and Puebla, Loveland was severely wounded in the Battle of Chapultepec, and was returned to the United States as an invalid. Upon recovery, Loveland entered the mercantile business in Illinois, and married Phelena Shaw in 1853. After she died a couple years later, Loveland remarried, to Miranda Ann Montgomery.

In 1859 Loveland joined the Colorado Gold Rush, and helped establish the town of the Golden in the Kansas Territory and went into the mercantile business there, building the town's first storefront and second building. After the formation of the Colorado Territory in 1861, he was instrumental in helping establish the territorial capital at Golden. He offered the use of his building, which also was a public hall that was central to the town's activities, to the House of Representatives while another in the same block served the Council (Senate). When most of Golden's leading citizens left to fight in the American Civil War, Loveland kept the languishing town alive. At the height of the depression Loveland built the town's first brick storefront in 1863 to house his mercantile business, the Loveland Block, now considered to be the oldest existing commercial brick structure in Colorado. The building also served to house first Masonic Lodge in Colorado and was expanded in 1866 to accommodate both houses the Colorado Territorial Legislature, which met there until the capital was moved to Denver in 1867. The Territorial Library and possibly Territorial Supreme Court were also housed there.

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