Entity Collection

: Herman W. Kluge; A town founder of Palisade, Colorado. According to US Census records, he was born in Illinois to John and Mary Kluge, both Prussian immigrants. He married Anna "Annie" (Doyle) Kluge in Denver, Colorado in 1890 (she was also from Illinois, and the daughter of Irish immigrants), and they were living in Boulder, Colorado by 1900. There, census records list him as a coal miner. He was living in Palisade by 1910, and census records show his occupation as a retail merchant selling general merchandise. Oral history interviewee Ann Stokes remembers his store being located on Main Street. According to US Representative Wayne Aspinall in his oral history interview, Kluge was one of the incorporators of the town, a "fine merchant" and a "good citizen," but eventually became the victim of anti-German sentiment during World War I. He was elected to the State Senate in 1914, and served until 1918, when prejudice against his German heritage made it impossible for him to seek reelection. After leaving Palisade with his Annie, he and partner Thomas E. Lewis founded the Lewis & Kluge Mercantile in Eagle, Colorado. By 1930, the Kluges were living in Denver with their son, William, the manager of a department store there. Herman Kluge died in Denver in 1933, and is interred in Denver's Fairmount Cemetery. *Photograph of Herman Kluge courtesy of the Eagle Valley Library District and the Eagle County Historical Society.