Nathan Cole was a nineteenth century politician, merchant and businessman from Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

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Born in St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, Cole attended common schools as a child and later took a partial course at Shurtleff College

Shurtleff College

Shurtleff College was founded 1827 in Alton, Illinois by Reverend John Mason Peck as Alton Seminary. It became Shurtleff College in 1836 honoring Dr. Brendon Shurtleff, of Boston, who donated $10,000 to the college. Andrew Carnegie in 1910 donated $15,000 for construction of a library...

. He engaged in mercantile

Mercantilism

Mercantilism is the economic doctrine in which government control of foreign trade is of paramount importance for ensuring the prosperity and security of the state. In particular, it demands a positive balance of trade. Mercantilism dominated Western European economic policy and discourse from...

 pursuits in St. Louis, was a director of the Bank of Commerce for forty-three years, most of which time he was also vice president of the bank, and was a director in a number of insurance and other corporations. Cole served as Mayor of St. Louis, Missouri from 1869 to 1871, was president of the Merchants' Exchange in 1876 and was elected a Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 to the United States House of Representatives

United States House of Representatives

The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...

 in 1876, serving from 1877 to 1879, being unsuccessful for re-election in 1878. Afterward, he resumed his former business activities in St. Louis until his death there on March 4, 1904. He was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery

Bellefontaine and Calvary Cemeteries

Bellefontaine Cemetery and the Roman Catholic Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri are adjacent burial grounds, which have numerous historic and extravagant tombstones and mausoleums. They are the necropolis for a number of prominent local and state politicians, as well as soldiers of the...

 in St. Louis.

His son, Nathan Cole Jr.

Nathan Cole Jr.

Nathan Cole Jr. was one of the two founders of the Los Angeles Daily Times, now the Los Angeles Times. The son of a wealthy St. Louis, Missouri, politician and banker, he was just 21 years old in 1881 when he and a colleague, Thomas Gardiner, put together the first issues of the new venture to be...

, was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, in 1881.

External links

• Nathan Cole at Find A Grave
  Find A Grave
  Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
  
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• St. Louis Mayors: an Online Exhibit