Henry Waldo Coe

Henry Waldo Coe (November 4, 1857 – February 15, 1927) was a United States frontier physician and politician.

Coe was born in Waupun, Wisconsin, to Samuel Buel Coe and his wife Mary Jane (née Cronkhite). After his education and training, Coe went on to become a pioneer doctor in the Dakota Territory, a member of the territorial legislature, and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt.[1]

Biography

When he was very young Coe and his parents moved to Morristown, Minnesota. After graduating from high school, Coe took classes at the University of Minnesota and then supplemented this by study with his father and attending classes at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. He graduated from Long Island College Hospital in New York in July 1880. He moved to Mandan, North Dakota and was the first physician to settle in the Dakota Territory. He was elected to the last territorial legislature (1885) before the territory was divided. He also served as mayor of Mandan.[2]

While in the Dakota Territory, Coe met the young Theodore Roosevelt, who had gone there to regain his health. Their friendship lasted until Roosevelt's death in 1919.[3]

Henry and his wife Viola moved to Portland, Oregon in 1890 where he focused on treating nervous and mental diseases, and where he owned and operated the Morningside Hospital.[1][4] He quickly rose to a prominent position in financial and political affairs of the Northwest. He was president of the First National Bank of St. Johns, Oregon, president of the First National Bank of Kelso, Washington, vice-president of the Scandinavian-American Bank of Portland, Oregon, director of the Scandinavian-American Savings Bank of Astoria, Oregon, one of the proprietors of the Сое-Furnish Irrigation Project of Stanfield, Oregon, and also had extensive mining interests. Always an active Republican he was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions at Chicago in 1904 and 1908, and in 1906 and 1907 was a member for Portland in the Oregon State Senate. As a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, during his presidency Coe served as a confidential representative of his interest in Oregon.[5]

He was president of the First National he was a party leader of the national Progressive Party in the 1900s. After retiring from practice in 1920, Henry and his second wife traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America.[3] In 1906, he was president of the American Medical Editor's Association.[6] He died after a heart attack in Glendale, California.[1][4]

Statues

Coe commissioned and donated four statues to the city of Portland in the 1920s.[1][7]

The Alexander Phimister Proctor statue of Theodore Roosevelt, is in the South Park Blocks.[2][7] Coe knew Roosevelt in 1884-1886 and went on hunting trips with him.[2][7] Coe paid $40,000 for the statue.[7]

Joan of Arc, in Laurelhurst, was made from the original molds of Emmanuel Frémiet's statue at the Place des Pyramides, which Coe saw on a visit to France.[2][7] Portland's Arc statue arrived from France in 1924 and was dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1925, honoring the Doughboys of World War I.[7]

Two statues were in progress but were erected after Coe's death in 1927.[7] One is Abraham Lincoln by George Fife Waters, commissioned in 1926 and dedicated at its South Park Blocks location on October 5, 1928.[2][7] The second was George Washington, a statue by Pompeo Coppini, which was dedicated on July 4, 1927.[2][7] It stands at 57th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard, in the center of the Rose City Park neighborhood.[7]

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Dr. Henry Waldo Coe Dies in California". The Bend Bulletin. February 16, 1927. p. 1. Retrieved November 27, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Manuscript Collections - Henry Waldo Coe Papers". UO Libraries. University of Oregon. 2009-08-01.
  3. 1 2 "Henry Waldo Coe". MANDAN Historical Society Website. MANDAN Historical Society. 2009-08-01.
  4. 1 2 "Henry Waldo Coe Dead". Statesman Journal. February 16, 1927. p. 1. Retrieved November 26, 2016 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Robert Coe, puritan. Published for private circulation. 1911.
  6. ↑ "The Editor's Forum". The Medical Herald. XXV (7): 311. July 1906.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Snyder, Eugene E. (1991). Portland Potpourri. Portland, Oregon: Binford & Mort. pp. 73–79. ISBN 0-8323-0493-X.
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