Adolph Coors

Early life

Adolph Hermann Joseph Kuhrs entered the world on February 4, 1847, in Barmen, Rhenish Prussia, born to Joseph Kuhrs and Helena Heim. At thirteen, he began an apprenticeship at a book and stationery shop in Ruhrort, lasting from November 1860 to June 1862. His mother passed away on April 2, 1862, prompting the family to relocate to Dortmund, Westphalia. That July, Adolph started a three-year brewing apprenticeship at Kronen, a Dortmund brewery run by Heinrich Wenker.

To cover the apprenticeship fee, he worked as a bookkeeper. His father died on November 24, 1862. Now an orphan, he finished the apprenticeship and stayed on as a paid worker at Wenker Brewery until May 1867. He then gained experience at breweries in Kassel, Berlin, and Uelzen, Germany.

In early 1868, he crossed to the United States as an undocumented stowaway—a fact that haunted him for life. He insisted his family never speak of it, and they kept quiet until his son died in 1970. He sailed from Hamburg to New York City, then moved on to Chicago, arriving May 30, 1868. His surname shifted from Kuhrs to Coors.

He took on various jobs: laborer in spring, brewer in summer, and fireman—shoveling coal into a steam engine's firebox—during fall and winter. In spring and summer of 1869, he learned bricklaying and stone cutting as an apprentice. On August 11, 1869, he became foreman at John Stenger's brewery in Naperville, Illinois.

He left that position on January 22, 1872, and headed to Denver, arriving in April. After a month working as a gardener, he bought into John Staderman's bottling firm on May 1, 1872. Later that year, he acquired full ownership of the business.

Golden Brewery

In 1873, Adolph Coors teamed up with Jacob Schueler, a confectioner from Denver, to buy an old tannery in Golden, Colorado, turning it into the Golden Brewery. Their beer hit store shelves by April 1874.

Coors bought out Schueler six years later, renaming the business the Adolph Coors Golden Brewery. When Prohibition arrived in Colorado in 1916, he shifted production to malted milk. The company also made porcelain and ceramics using local clay; that division eventually became the independent firm CoorsTek.

Marriage and family

Adolph Coors and Louisa Webber were married on April 12, 1879, at his home on the brewery grounds. Louisa was the daughter of the superintendent of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad maintenance shops. The couple raised six children to adulthood, having lost two in infancy. Their first child, Louise, nicknamed Lulu, was born on March 2, 1880.

Augusta, called Gussie, followed in 1881. Adolph Coors Jr. arrived on January 12, 1884, then Bertha on June 24, 1886, and Grover C. Coors in 1888. The youngest, Herman Frederick Coors, was born on July 24, 1890, while the family vacationed in Berlin. All three daughters attended the Wolcott School for Girls in Denver.

Louise married Henry F. Kugeler at the Coors Mansion. Augusta married Herbert E. Collbran there on October 5, 1905; a local editor described her as a pretty, talented native of Golden who was universally pleasant. The couple moved to Korea, where Herbert’s father served as the nation’s transportation adviser and Herbert held a key railway position. Coors beer began international shipping in Korea in 1908, possibly due to the family connection.

The three sons all graduated from Cornell University and returned to Denver for roles in the family business. Adolph Jr. married Alice May Kistler at her home; Grover married Gertrude at the Coors Mansion. Bertha, an accomplished equestrienne and safari hunter, married Harold S. Munroe at the mansion on January 8, 1911, and they relocated to Mexico for his gold-mining work. Herman married Dorothea Clara Morse on May 31, 1916, and worked at the family’s porcelain factory in Golden.

In 1926, he moved with Dorothea and their two sons, Dallas and Robert, to Inglewood, California, where he founded the H.F. Coors China Company. He later married Janet Ferrin on June 9, 1942.

Did You Know?

• He was orphaned at age 15—his mother died on April 2, 1862, and his father on November 24, 1862—yet completed his brewing apprenticeship and worked as a paid employee until May 1867.
• Coors changed his surname from 'Kuhrs' to 'Coors' after arriving in America.