Andrew Dow, of the Garfield creek section of Colorado, living on a pleasantly located and highly productive ranch not far from the village of Newcastle, Garfield county, is a native of Scotland, where he was born in 1846, and where his parents were born and reared, and his ancestors had lived and labored for many generations. He is the son of William and Isabella (McPherson) Dow, prosperous farmers in Scotland, who ended their lives and their labors there, the father dying on July 24, 1889, aged seventy-four, and the mother on January 3, 1886, aged sixty-one. The offspring numbered six children, of whom Andrew was the third. He remained under the paternal roof-tree until he reached the age of seventeen, aiding his father on the farm and at times with his work as a stonemason, a craft he often followed in connection with his farming operations. In 1868 the son came to the United States and located in Jasper county, Iowa, where he worked a rented farm for nine years. In 1879 he moved to Colorado and settled at Leadville when that place was at the height of its mining excitement. He continued to live there engaged in mining and milling until 1886, when he moved to Garfield county and, in partnership with John Murray, took up a ranch near the head of Garfield creek. Here he maintained his home and conducted a flourishing enterprise for a number of years, then sold his interest in the ranch and its business and bought the ranch on which he now lives on the same creek, but farther down the stream. On this tract he has built up a very prosperous and active industry in general ranching and raising stock, and has become one of the leading and substantial men of his portion of the county. He is widely known and highly respected, and takes a leading part in all public movements for the improvement of his community and the greater convenience and comfort of its people. He has the Scotchman’s proverbial thrift and shrewdness, and a spirit of public enterprise in accordance with the most admired tendencies of American progress and development.
Source: Bowen, A. W. Progressive Men of Western Colorado. Chicago: A. W. Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1905.