The Coors Family
The Coors Brewing Company was founded by Adolph Coors. Adolph Coors was born in Barmen, Prussia in 1847 as Adolf Kohrs. Adolph worked for several years as an apprentice in various breweries in Germany before making the voyage in 1868 to the United States as an undocumented stowaway searching for opportunity and prosperity. He moved to Chicago late the same year and changed his name from Kohrs to Coors. In 1869, Coors became the foreman of John Stenger's brewery in Naperville Illonios, where he worked for three years. His experience there would help him create his own company in the future. In 1872 Coors moved to Denver Colorado. Just a year later he purchased an abandoned tannery in Golden with a man named Jacob Schueler. By February of 1874, they were making enough beer to sell to a large portion of the public. Six years later in 1880, Adolph Coors purchased Schueler's portion of the brewery and named it Adolph Coors Golden Brewery. This is where the Coors empire began.
In 1897, Coors married Louisa Webber, whose father was a successful superintendent of the Denver and Rio Grande maintenance shops. They married at Coors' brewery. Later they had three daughters and three sons who survived into adulthood: Louise, Augusta, Adolph Jr., Bertha, Grover, and Herman. Adolph Jr., Grover, and Herman all attended Cornell University in New York before returning to Colorado to take positions at the family brewery; Adolph Jr. taking the position as company president.
In 1912, Adolph Jr. married Alice Kistler. The couple then had four children: Adolph III, Joseph, William, and May. All three grandsons of Adolph Coors senior would come to possess influential roles in the brewing company during the 1960s and 1970s. These men would often demonstrate their conservative views through actions taken at their company, which would have severe consequences.
