Charles D. McPhee (1878)

CHARLOTTETOWN EXAMINER, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1878

In the Denver Daily Tribune, Colorado, we find the following account of the position occupied by an Islander. Charles D. McPhee is a nephew of the Rev. Pius McPhee, and must be remembered by many.

The Tribune says: "Charles D. McPhee is a practical mechanic, having been engaged in this business for twenty-five years. He began business in Denver in 1869, and erected the Denver Planing Mill in 1873. He is one of the best known and largest contractors in the State, and has erected a number of the finest buildings in Colorado and Wyoming. Prominent among the number are Charpiot's hotel, Archer Block, Denver Gas Works, Riethmann Block (corner of Fifteenth and Arapahoe Streets), Alvord House, State University at Boulder, Carey Block in Cheyenne (the finest building in that town), a large hotel at Estes Park, Colonel James Archer's fine cut stone residence (to cost $46,000), and residences in almost every block in the city.

The large warehouse of F. F. Struby, at Garland, and various mill buildings in various other localities, have been erected under his supervision, and from material prepared beforehand at his large planing mill. The mill is a two-story brick, fronting one hundred feet on Eighteenth Street, and extending back seventy-feet on Wynkoop Street. The first floor is used for storage and for planing and matching lumber; the second floor for the manufacture of carpentry work in general. The yard covers an entire half block, stocked heavily with the choicest Eastern and native lumber.

In the line of Eastern soft and hardwoods and native lumber, including laths, shingles, sashes, doors, blinds, stair stock, building paper and glass, Mr. McPhee carries a surprisingly large and well chosen assortment. Particularly in plate glass of the largest size and weight, from the best houses of the East, his invoice is unrivalled. Mr. McPhee makes a specialty of work to order, and the supplying of building materials of all descriptions, and giving estimates on all kind of buildings, and by the satisfactory character of his work over the wide field of his operations, has built up an immense trade and earned the deserved reputation of a wide-awake, thoroughly reliable business man.