Henry Kohler House — Built 1880-81

Henry Kohler House — Built 1880-81. . , “The Metropolis of San Juan,” as Lake City was already calling itself in the mid-1870's, was in the midst of a building boom when two young, college-educated men decided to open the city's first drug store in the spring of 1876. The two entrepreneurs, Henry Kohler and Stephen Kostitch, were druggists and chemists who dealt in drugs, medicines, painters' materials, stationery, school books, tobacco and cigars. The partnership opened for business in the Houghland Block on Silver Street but within a year, due to the continued economic boom in Lake City, they built their own stylish drug store a few doors up the street. , Henry Kohler became the sole proprietor of the business in 1879 when Kostitch left Lake City to move to Leadville, Colorado, and open that city's eleventh drug store. , Late in 1880 Kohler returned to Germany, where he had attended Tubingen University in Wurtemberg, with the intention of marrying. During his absence from Lake City the winter of 1880-81 he contracted for the construction of this roomy brick residence which, when completed, was one of the costliest and most modern homes in Lake City at that date. Samuel Tarkington and Jack Wells were in charge of building the brick walls of the house, after which Antone Fjelle completed the interior work. , Kohler and his bride, Sophia Nachtigall Kohler, were married in Eisslingen, Germany, in March, 1881, and sailed for the United States later in the month. Kohler presented the brick home to his wife as a wedding present on their arrival in Lake City. During Christmas, 1882, it was noted that Kohler had surprised his wife with a “handsome upright rosewood piano, bringing to nine the number of first class pianos which are now in Lake City.” , Henry and Sophia Kohler continued to make this their home until 1885 when they moved to Surface Creek near present-day Delta, Colorado. Their Lake City home was rented to a number of Lake City area families, including William Rowan, O.H. Knight, George D. Bardwell, James T. Palmer, R.L. Ray, R.E. Peniston, and G.R. Neil, prior to its sale to F.A. Ralph in 1909. , After leaving Lake City, Kohler became an owner of the Bar I Ranch at what is now Cedaredge, Colorado; it was Sophia Kohler, noting a neat row of cedar trees which edged the ranch property, who initially suggested the name for the new town of “Cedar Edge.” , In 1898 the Kohlers again moved, this time to Denver where Kohler formed the Humphrey-Jones Mercantile Co. on Market Street which specialized in paints and wallpapers. The company's name was later changed to the Kohler-McLister Paint Co. when Kohler took into partnership a young relative, Frank McLister. , Sophia Kohler died in Denver in 1932; Henry Kohler continued to serve as president of the paint company until his death in 1940. The company, eventually known as KOMAC for the first letters of the names Kohler and McLister, grew to be the largest paint company between the Missouri River and California. With new owners, it remains in operation today. , Anna Elizabeth “Eliza” Repath first glimpsed the Lake Fork Valley from the window of a Barlow and Sanderson stagecoach in November, 1880. Forty years later, in 1920, she recalled that her arrival had been preceded a short time before by the robbery of the Del Norte-Lake City stage by Billy Leroy and Leroy's subsequent lynching in Del Norte. As a result, Eliza recalled the passengers were in fear of imminent attack of their stage by the assorted “bandits, desperadoes, murderers and other terrible denizens” who they imagined were lurking along the roadside. , Eliza and her husband, Cornish miner Henry Repath, arrived safely in Lake City where they were to spend the remainder of their lives. The couple left their native England in 1870, migrating to Hancock, Michigan, where Repath worked in the copper mines. Henry Repath, along with Capt. Jim Cruse, F.A. Ralph and others, was brought to Lake City in 1880 to work at the Ute-Ulay Mine on Henson Creek. , Henry Repath was working at the Vermont Mine on El Paso Creek, a tributary of Henson Creek, in January, 1887, when a snowslide swept down the mountain and into the mine buildings. Repath was not injured in the slide but was fatally hurt while trying to rescue two friends, Patrick McEnany and John Strom, who later died of their injuries. , Eliza married her old friend, Francis A. “Doc” Ralph in Lake City on March 13, 1889. Reporting on the wedding ceremony, the Lake City PHONOGRAPH wrote, “After the knot was tied and Mr. Ralph had went out and chocked off the war of the San Juan serenaders with cigars and other things, the guests sat down and did full justice to an elegant repast spread in honor of the occasion.” , “Doc” Ralph, although not a physician, was well known in Lake City business circles: with Theo Watson and Terry Brennan he had at different times operated several Lake City saloons, the best known of which was The Clipper which featured bar fixtures costing $3,000 in 1895 “the most costly ever seen in Lake City.” , F.A. Ralph also owned a livery, The Western Feed Stables, and was an organizer of the Lake City Drug Co., although he was perhaps best known as a miner: he worked at the Ute, Fanny Fern, Pelican, Independence, Varden Belle and Lellie at various times through the years. , F.A. and Eliza Ralph purchased the old Kohler residence in 1909 and moved into the home in 1910. In 1911 they added the ornate front porch with Ionic columns which may still be seen today. Portions of the wooden picket fence are also original. , After her husband’s death in 1922, Eliza Ralph continued to live in the home, content with the memories of her pioneer years in Lake City. She died at the home of her daughter in Alma, Nebraska in 1939. , The Kohler house was later owned by C.R. Lively and Mac Harris. It was purchased by Edward and Bessie Smith of Marshall, Texas, in 1950.