by Charles W. Bowman
Biographies
JAMES C. DENNY
Every
town has its representative, and emphatically Mr. Denny is La Junta's
prominent citizen. He came to Bent County in 1878 and located where the
city of La Junta is now situated. At that time there were only two or
three buildings in the place, and the first night after his arrival he
slept on a counter in the railroad station. There was at this time no
town nor city organization, no voting precinct, no school district, and
not much to indicate there ever would be. But through Mr. Denny's
indefatigable perseverance, and with the assistance of the railroad
company, La Junta has now a city organization, with Mr. D. as its first
Mayor. He was elected to this office May 1 1881, receiving a majority of
fifty votes over all competitors. He is President of the School Board:
was instrumental in building a fine schoolhouse, and furnishing it more
completely than any other school building in the county. January 15,
1880, Mr. Denny was admitted to practice in all the courts of Colorado.
Was appointed Postmaster in 1879, but in July, 1881, resigned in favor
of R. B. Hollingsworth. He has charge of the station at La Junta of the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad; has fifteen men as clerks under
him. In 1868, he was married, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to Miss Emma
Brundage. They have one daughter living, having buried two boys in Iowa.
Mr. Denny was born in Geneva, Harrison Co., Penn., November 4, 1846.
There he lived four years before moving with his parents to Ohio. In
l852, they moved to Mount Vernon, Linn Co., Iowa. He worked on a farm
during his boyhood and attended school only one summer and two winters.
In 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company K, Ninth Iowa Cavalry, J.
J. Lambert, of the Colorado Chieftain, as First Lieutenant. He served in
the Seventh Corps of the Army of the Southwest under Gen. Steele, and
afterward Gen. J. J. Reynolds. He was noticed by Gen. R. in Special
Order 144 for bravery, having carried important dispatches from Searcy,
Arkansas, to Little Rock, same State, notifying of Gen. Price's last
raid. He was wounded at the battle of Hickory Station. He was promoted
to the Telegraph Corps and detailed in the Military Telegraph Office at
Duvall's Bluff. He was discharged from the army April, 1866, having
served nearly four years. Mr. D. remained in Madison, Arkansas, for one
year after the close of the war. He then returned hone and was employed
by the Chicago & North-Western Railroad for a time at Mount Vernon, and
afterward at Mechanicsville, Iowa, where he resided five years, three
years with the railroad and two years he was engaged in mercantile life.
La Junta, Bent County, owes much to Mr. Denny's enterprise for its
present prosperity.
