One of the foreign contributions to the industrial and agricultural forces of the United States who is entitled to mention in any account of the enterprising and progressive men of the Western slope in Colorado is the subject of this brief review, Hans S. Henrickson, of Garfield county, residing and carrying on a profitable business in the vicinity of Newcastle. He has become thoroughly Americanized in his ideas and methods, and is deeply loyal to the interests and instructions of his adopted country and in full sympathy with the welfare of its people. Mr. Henrickson was born in Denmark on June 27, 1860, and is the son of Annie Paline and Soren Henrickson, Danes by nativity and dwellers in their native land from infancy, as their forefathers had done from immemorial times. The father was a merchant in his young and vigorous manhood, but became a farmer when he retired from mercantile life. They had six children, four of whom survive the father, who died in 1898. They are Martin, of Spokane, Washington, Hans S. of Colorado, and Frank and Metta, still living in Denmark, where the mother also still resides. The father was successful in business and esteemed throughout his community. He belonged to the Lutheran church, as his wife does. Their son Hans educated himself in his father’s store mainly, attending the state schools only for a short time. At the age of sixteen he started out to make his own way in the world, and in 1883 came to the United States, locating near Bloomington, Illinois, where he worked on farms for wages until 1884. He then came to Colorado, and after a short residence at Denver, moved to Fort Collins, where he again took up ranch work for a year. In 1885 he moved to Leadville and for a year conducted a dairy there in the interest of the Sherman Brothers. Portions of the next two years were passed in useful industry in the smelters, and in August, 1887, he settled in the vicinity of Antlers, Garfield county, locating a pre-emption claim. After spending four years improving his property and making it productive, he sold it at a considerable advance on his investment. He then made a visit to Denmark, but was so well pleased with Colorado that he soon returned and purchased eighty acres, a portion of which is included in the home which he now occupies. He has bought additional land and sold some, and now has seventy acres, of which he can cultivate sixty-five. His crops are principally hay, grain and vegetables, but he also raises cattle and horses. His land is well supplied with water by its own right, and his tillage is vigorous and skillful, so that there is no reason why it should not prove to be of greater and greater value and productiveness. While taking an interest in the political affairs of this country, local and general, he is independent of party control, and in all respects is a good and useful citizen. As such he is well esteemed, and both by his own activity and the force of his example he is recognized as an influence for good in the section and county in which he lives.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.