Harry Koch

Vocation

Dutch-born American businessman who founded the Quanah Tribune-Chief newspaper. He was the second of the eight children of the physician Johan Anthon Koch (1836–1910) and Gatske Hotzes Jorritsma (1837–1876). His mother died when giving birth to her last child. His father remarried Petronella de Swart, the daughter of a banker. After working as a printer’s apprentice in Den Haag and Germany, Koch emigrated to the United States. At age 21, he set off on a steamer and arrived in New York on 5 December 1888. He first lived in Dutch enclaves in Chicago, Grand Rapids, New Orleans, Michigan and other places, where he worked for Dutch-language newspapers. In 1891 he settled in Quanah, North Texas, a dusty town that got a railroad connection just a few years before. Here he became involved in real estate speculation. The U.S. government had given vast amounts of public land to railroad companies, and the companies needed to sell that land to settlers to create customers and pay off debts. Harry bought up two of the town’s newspapers, apparently with his own money, merged them into the Quanah Tribune-Chief, and began printing beguiling stories of Western prosperity to attract investors and farmers. Harry got married, had two sons, traveled regularly to New York and Europe, and was proud of having crossed the Atlantic nine times. He was popular and enjoyed his success. He had little affinity with the poor common man and their wish for social reforms, but instead believed that capitalists, railroad men and progressive boosters like himself, should determine politics. Harry Koch was the father of Fred C. Koch (23 September 1900, Quanah, TX – 17 November 1967, Ogden), founder of Koch Industries, the second-largest privately owned company in the United States. His grandchildren, the Koch brothers Charles and David Koch have been active in American politics since at least 1980, spending millions of dollars to their conservative -libertarian political views. Link to Wikipedia