#49. W. H. Cochran Home

This house was built by William Hugh Cochran in 1879.  Cochran came to Colorado in 1872, settling first in Colorado Springs.  By 1875 he and Abe Roberts had purchased the San Juan Newspaper from Nick Lambert.  He returned to Iowa to marry Lillie Holtsclaw.  After his return to Del Norte, he took part in establishing the Methodist Church.  He also served as the postmaster, was employed as the engineer for surveying the county, and did initial survey work to lay out the town of Henry, now Monte Vista.  He was elected treasurer of Rio Grande County in 1885, and served for four years.  He also was the assistant Assessor with Charles Olson.  He and his brother started the First National Bank of Del Norte, which is also on the downtown historic tour.  He was one of the directors of the Mutual Loan and Building Association.  He and his brother John also had a large cattle ranch on San Francisco Creek.

After the First National Bank of Del Norte failed in the financial panic of 1893, he spent several years trying to put things together.  He returned to surveying, located the Continental Reservoir, and successfully completed the governmental permit to complete the dam.  He also worked on several other reservoirs in the area.  He worked in real estate; in 1901 he organized the San Luis Valley Real Estate Exchange and published the Commercial Eagle Newspaper for the exchange.  He and his son ran the San Juan Prospector again for a while.

He was a member of the Del Norte School board, a trustee of the College of the Southwest, and served four years as a regent of the Colorado University at Boulder.

Turn left on 9^th Street.