| Born | January 12, 1916 Golden, Colorado, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Died | February 9, 1960 (aged 44) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Cornell University |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Urquhart Grant (m.1940–1960; his death) |
| Children | Four |
| Parent(s) | Adolph Coors II (father) |
| Relatives | Adolph Coors (grandfather); William Coors, Joseph Coors (brothers) |
Adolph Coors III (January 12, 1916 – February 9, 1960) was the grandson of Adolph Coors and heir to the Coors Brewing Company empire.
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Life and career[edit]
Coors was born on January 12, 1915, the son of Alice May (née Kistler; 1885–1970) and Adolph Coors Jr. He attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. Like his father and his youngest brother Joseph Coors, Adolph graduated from Cornell University, where he was president of the Quill and Dagger society and a member of The Kappa Alpha Society. Coors was also a semi-professional baseball player. At the time of his death, he was CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Coors Brewing Company in Golden, Colorado.[1] Coors married Mary Urquhart Grant in November 1940. The couple had four children together.[2]
Kidnapping[edit]
On February 9, 1960, while on his way to work, Coors was murdered in a foiled kidnapping attempt by escaped murderer Joseph Corbett Jr. on Turkey Creek Bridge near Morrison, Colorado.[3]
On the morning of February 9, a milkman discovered Coors' International Travelall on the bridge, empty of occupants and with the radio on. Police identified the vehicle as belonging to Coors and began a search of the area that turned up Coors' hat, glasses, and a blood stain.[4][5] The following day, his wife Mary received a ransom note in the mail requesting $500,000 for his safe release.[6] The hunt for Coors and his assailant was the largest FBI effort since the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.[5]
On September 11, 1960, a hiker stumbled upon a pair discarded trousers in the Rocky Mountains, and found in the pocket a penknife bearing the initials 'ACIII'.[7] Then on September 15, 1960, a shirt belonging to Coors, and his skull, were found in a remote area near Pikes Peak.[8][9]
A witness turned up that revealed he had seen a yellow 1951 Mercury with the letters 'AT' and numerals '62' somewhere in the license plate combination on the bridge around the time of Coors' disappearance.[10] A car matching the description was found torched in a dump in Atlantic City, New Jersey.[10] Investigators traced the car back to a Colorado resident named Walter Osborne, who suspiciously moved out of his Denver apartment the day after the kidnapping. The name 'Walter Osborne' was revealed to be an alias for Corbett.[4] Due to international obsession with the case, including a picture of Corbett in an issue of Reader's Digest, Corbett was recognized by two neighbors in Vancouver, BC and was arrested.[11]
As there were no witnesses, prosecutors built their case against Corbett through circumstantial and forensic evidence. Corbett's coworkers overheard him talking about a plan that would earn him over a million dollars and the ransom note typeface was traced back to Corbett's typewriter.[10] The biggest piece of evidence, however, was the dirt found in the undercarriage of the yellow Mercury. Investigators were able to trace the car's path by noting the rare ink feldspar and granite minerals found in the area Coors' body was discovered.[10] Corbett was convicted of first degree murder on March 29, 1961, and sentenced to life in state prison.[10] He was released on parole in 1980 for good behavior and drove a truck for The Salvation Army until he retired.[12] He died by suicide at the age of 80 in August 2009.[13] He lived and died just 10 miles from where he killed Coors and always maintained his innocence.[14]
The kidnapping was featured in the Forensic Files episode 'Bitter Brew.' The 2017 true crime book 'The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty' by Phillip Jett details the kidnapping.
Legacy[edit]
An avid skier, Coors was inducted into the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1998.[15]
References[edit]
- ^Dutcher, Brandon (April 1994). 'For Adolph Coors IV, Money Couldn't Fill the Emptiness Inside'. Double Dutch. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
- ^'1996 interview with Joe Corbett'. The Denver Post. 2009-08-25. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'Denver Brewer Coors Missing; Fear Kidnap. Deserted Car, Motor On, Found'. Los Angeles Times. February 10, 1960. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
Adolph Coors III, wealthy brewer and industrialist, vanished from his blood-flecked vehicle on a rural road yesterday, touching off a vast manhunt in the Rocky Mountain foothills west of Denver...
- ^ ab'A Look Back at the Coors Kidnapping Case'. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^ ab'How an Escaped Convict Terrorized the Coors Beer Dynasty'. Vice. 2017-09-19. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty'. Longreads. 2017-09-26. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^Moore, James. Murder by Numbers - Fascinating Figures Behind The World's Worst Crimes. 2018: History Press. p. 127. ISBN9780750981453.
- ^'The way it was: Today in history - Sept. 15'. 2016-10-19. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'Crime History: Coors brewery heir killed in botched kidnap attempt'. Washington Examiner. 2011-02-08. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^ abcdeBovson, Mara. 'The case of Adolph Coors'. NY Daily News. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^Eddy, Cheryl. 'On the Run From One Murder, He Accidentally Committed Another—And Joined the FBI's 'Most Wanted' List'. Gizmodo. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'Ex-convict, 80, who killed Coors scion takes his own life'. The Seattle Times. 2009-08-27. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'Coors killer Corbett takes his own life'. The Denver Post. 2009-08-25. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^Eddy, Cheryl. 'On the Run From One Murder, He Accidentally Committed Another—And Joined the FBI's 'Most Wanted' List'. Gizmodo. Retrieved 2018-08-03.
- ^'Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame'. Retrieved September 25, 2010.
External links[edit]
- Jett, Philip. The Death of an Heir: Adolph Coors III and the Murder That Rocked an American Brewing Dynasty New York: St. Martin's Press, 2017. ISBN978-1250111807
| Born | Adolph Hermann Josef Kuhrs (or some variant thereof) February 4, 1847 |
|---|---|
| Died | June 5, 1929 (aged 82) Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Resting place | Crown Hill Cemetery, Wheat Ridge, Colorado 39°45′34″N105°05′23″W / 39.75951°N 105.08980°W |
| Occupation | Brewer |
| Parent(s) | Joseph Kuhrs (c. 1820-1862) Helena Hein (c. 1820-1862) |
Adolph Herman Joseph Coors Sr. (born Adolph Hermann Josef Kuhrs or some variant thereof)[clarification needed] (February 4, 1847 – June 5, 1929) was a German American brewer who founded the Adolph Coors Company in Golden, Colorado, in 1873.
- 3Marriage and family
Early years[edit]
Adolph Kohrs was born in Barmen in Rhenish Prussia on February 4, 1847, the son of Joseph Kohrs (c.1820–1862) and Helena Heim (c.1820–1862). He was apprenticed at age thirteen to the book and stationery store of Andrea & Company in nearby Ruhrort from November 1860 until June 1862. His mother died on April 2, 1862. The Kohrs family moved to Dortmund, Westphalia. In July 1862, Adolph was apprenticed for a three-year period at a brewery owned by Henry Wenker in Dortmund. He was charged a fee for his apprenticeship, so he worked as a bookkeeper to pay for it. His father died on November 24, 1862. Orphaned, Adolph completed his apprenticeship and continued to work as a paid employee at the Wenker Brewery until May 1867. He then worked at breweries in Kassel, Berlin, and Uelzen in Germany.
Early in 1868, he came to the United States as an undocumented stowaway.[1] He sailed from Hamburg to New York City and then moved to Chicago arriving on May 30, 1868. His name was changed from 'Kohrs' to 'Coors'. He worked in the spring as a laborer, and during the summer he worked as a brewer. In the fall and winter he worked as a fireman, loading coal into the firebox of a steam engine. In the spring and summer of 1869, he worked as an apprentice bricklayer and a stone cutter. He became foreman of John Stenger's brewery on August 11, 1869, in Naperville, Illinois, about 35 miles west of Chicago.
He resigned from Stenger's brewery on January 22, 1872, and moved to Denver, arriving in April. He worked in Denver as a gardener for a month, and on May 1, 1872, he purchased a partnership in the bottling firm of John Staderman. In the same year, he bought and assumed control of the entire business.[2]
Golden Brewery[edit]
On November 14, 1873, Coors and the Denver confectioner Jacob Schueler purchased the abandoned Golden City Tannery and converted it to the Golden Brewery. By February 1874, they were producing beer for sale. In 1880, Coors purchased Schueler's interest, and the brewery was renamed Adolph Coors Golden Brewery.[3] When Prohibition began in Colorado in 1916, he converted his brewery to make malted milk. The company also manufactured porcelain and ceramic products made from clay mined in Golden. The Coors Porcelain division has since split off, and is now known as CoorsTek.
Marriage and family[edit]
Immediate family[edit]
On April 12, 1879, Adolph Coors married Louisa Webber, the daughter of the superintendent of the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad maintenance shops. They were married at the Coors home on the brewery grounds. Adolph and Louisa raised three sons and three daughters to adulthood, with two children dying in infancy. Louise was born on March 2, 1880, and was nicknamed Lulu among her many friends. Their second child was Augusta, born in 1881, and known by her nickname of Gussie. The fifth born and third surviving child was Adolph Coors Jr., on January 12, 1884. Bertha Coors was born on June 24, 1886, and Grover C. Coors was born in 1888. The last addition to the family, Herman Frederick Coors, was born on July 24, 1890, while the family was on vacation in Berlin.
All of the daughters attended the Wolcott School for Girls in Denver. Louise married Henry F. Kugeler at the Coors Mansion, and Augusta married Herbert E. Collbran there on October 5, 1905. At the time, Transcript editor George West wrote, 'Miss Coors is a native Golden girl and proud of it. She is pretty and talented, and by her universally pleasant and courteous demeanor has endeared herself to all the people of her native town.' She and her husband moved to Korea, where his father was the nation's transportation adviser; Herbert Collbran held an important position with the governmental railways. It is possible that the advent of international shipping of Coors beer, which began in Korea in 1908, was directly related to the family's presence there.
Adolph Jr., Grover and Herman all graduated from Cornell University, and returned to Denver to take positions in the family operations. Adolph Jr. was married to Alice May Kistler at the Kistler home, and the family lived in Denver. Grover married Gertrude at the Coors Mansion. Bertha, who became an accomplished equestrienne and safari hunter, married Harold S. Munroe on January 8, 1911, at the Coors Mansion. The couple moved to Mexico where Harold worked in gold mining operations. Herman Coors married Doreathea Clara Morse on May 25, 1916, in Tompkins, New York. {Two Hermans?} Herman Coors married Janet Ferrin and stayed in Golden, and worked in the family's porcelain manufacturing operations. In 1926, he moved to Inglewood, California, where he set up his own porcelain plant, the H.F. Coors China Company.
Siblings[edit]
Adolph Coors is known to have had at least two siblings, a sister and younger brother, William Kuhrs, who was born in Dortmund, Germany in 1849. William followed his brother to America in 1870 and took the same respelling of the family name. He made his way to Chicago where he made a good living as a cabinet maker, and arrived in Golden by the mid-1870s. He took a good position of employment at his brother's brewery, in which employ he remained for the rest of his life. Following further in his brother's footsteps, William married Louisa's sister Mary in 1881, and ten years later moved to Denver where he had charge of the Coors interests in that city. The couple had three daughters, two of whom were Mattie and Helena. William Coors died on December 30, 1923, and is buried at the Golden Cemetery. Upon his death the Colorado Transcript described him as 'a genial, accommodating man, and had many friends in Golden, Denver and elsewhere.' His oldest daughter married William J. Gilbert and the second married Charles Nitschke.
Death[edit]
On June 5, 1929, Adolph Coors committed suicide by leaping from the sixth-floor window of the Cavalier Hotel in Virginia Beach, VA. [4][5]
See also[edit]
Adolph Coors Iv
References[edit]
- ^'Coors Brewery Tours in Golden CO MillerCoors'. Archived from the original on 2015-07-10. Retrieved 2015-08-22.
- ^An advertisement in Corbett, Hoye & Company's Directory of the City of Denver (1873) on page 242 showed Adolph Coors as a dealer in 'bottled beer, ale, porter and cider, imported and domestic wines, and seltzer water.' His place of business was located in the Tappan Block on Holladay (now Market) Street between E and F streets (now 14th and 15th). The same directory shows that Coors lived on Curtis Street between IC and L (20th and 21st) streets.
- ^Garrett Oliver (9 September 2011). The Oxford Companion to Beer. Oxford University Press. p. 265. ISBN978-0-19-536713-3.
- ^Rich Griset, 'Strange Brew', Coastal Virginia Magazine, January 2015
- ^'Brewing Beer and Problems'. The New York Times. July 7, 2000. Retrieved 2007-08-21.
In 'Citizen Coors: An American Dynasty' (William Morrow, $27), Dan Baum wisely singles the family out. Mr. Baum builds a strong narrative from the tale of how this big dysfunctional family made a lot of cold beer and money that ultimately financed conservative causes via the Republican Party and the Heritage Foundation. There is no lack of drama, starting with the patriarch Adolph Coors, who committed suicide by jumping out of a hotel window.