John Cole: Cow Puncher, Coal Miner and Operator of the Hanna Hotel

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John Cole (UPCCEM, March 1937)

1925

​John Cole, Hanna, was born in Truckee, Nevada, sixty-two years ago. His parents were Irish and, coming to this country from the Emerald Isle in 1858, they went out to Nevada in the wake of one of its early gold rushes. Mr. Cole became a cowpuncher early in his career and has ridden the range in the states of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming. He came across the trail from Idaho with cattle in 1879. He was married in 1887 and “rode” with the cowpunchers for two years afterwards, when he came to Hanna and went to work for The Union Pacific Coal Company.
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Mr. Cole’s mother died when he was quite young, but he remembers her devotion to her religion. She was always a devout Catholic and tried to teach her son the precepts of her church, even when customs were different in the new country. He has worked for The Union Pacific Coal Company for thirty-four years. Mr. Cole has one son, Lester, and one daughter, Kathryne, both of whom are at home in Hanna. (UPCCEM, March 1925)

1937

​There passed away on January 26, 1937, at Pasadena, California, Mr. John Cole, an old-time employee at Carbon and Hanna. Mr. Cole was born at Truckee, Nevada, in July 1862, and married Miss Josephine Whitney at Elk Mountain, Wyoming, in 1889, who with one son and one daughter survive. In the early ‘80’s, he was a range rider, stagecoach driver, and cow puncher when the state was a cattle country. In later years he operated the Hanna Hotel and was well and favorably known through that connection. (UPCCEM, March 1937) 

1937

Note: No Hanna cemetery records for John Cole were found.