John Wesley Iliff

John Wesley Iliff, Sr. (December 18, 1831 – February 9, 1878) was a Colorado cattle rancher who is the namesake of the Iliff School of Theology in Denver.[1]

John Wesley Iliff
Born(1831-12-18)December 18, 1831
McLuney, Ohio
DiedFebruary 9, 1878(1878-02-09) (aged 46)
Resting placeFairmount Cemetery (Denver, Colorado)
Spouse(s)Elizabeth Iliff
ChildrenWilliam Seward Iliff
Edna Iliff (1871-1951)
Louise Iliff (1875-1966)
John Wesley Iliff, Jr. (1877-1879)
Parent(s)Salome Reed, Thomas Iliff

Biography

Iliff was born on December 18, 1831 in McLuney, Ohio to Salome Reed and Thomas Iliff.

He attended Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio but did not graduate. In 1857, at the age of twenty-six, his father gave him $500 in cash and moved to Ohio City, Kansas where he opened a retail store. In 1859 gold was discovered in Colorado and he moved to Denver, Colorado to open a new retail store on Blake Street, trading supplies for livestock from new immigrants, then fattening them on the open range and using the profits to buy land in northeast Colorado, creating the largest ranch in Colorado history, where he raised as many as 35,000 head a year to sell to Union Pacific construction crews, becoming a millionaire known as "the Cattle King of the Plains", leaving his fortune to found Iliff School of Theology.[2]

He died on February 9, 1878.

Legacy

The town of Iliff, Colorado was named for him.[3]

Iliff Avenue in Denver and Aurora, Colorado, which goes past the Iliff School of Theology, was named for him.

In 1960, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.[4]

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References
  1. J.M. Buckley and Philip Schaff and Henry Codman Potter and Samuel Macauley Jackson (1896). The American Church History Series: A history of Methodists. p. 665. ... the Iliff School of Theology, a gift of W. S. Iliff, an alumnus of the university, as a memorial of his father, John Wesley Iliff. Mrs. Elizabeth Iliff Warren has endowed the School of Theology with $100,000. ...
  2. "John Wesley Iliff, Sr. (1831-1878)". Iliff School of Theology. Archived from the original on November 8, 2010. Retrieved 2009-07-07. John Wesley Iliff was the son of Salome Reed Iliff and Thomas Iliff, a wealthy Ohio cattle farmer. Born in McLuney, Ohio, on December 18, 1831, John remained in his home state for his education at Ohio Wesleyan in Delaware, Ohio ...
  3. Dawson, John Frank. Place names in Colorado: why 700 communities were so named, 150 of Spanish or Indian origin. Denver, CO: The J. Frank Dawson Publishing Co. p. 28. Archived from the original on 2016-11-08.
  4. "Hall of Great Westerners". National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Retrieved November 22, 2019.
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