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John Henry Riley
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, on May 12, 1850, he immigrated to America in 1852, settling in Baltimore. He moved to Colorado in 1865 and worked for the Colorado Central Railroad. By 1873, he was working for a Ft. Stanton beef contractor near the Mescalero Indian Reservation and operated a ranch near Ft. Stanton. Riley became a partner in L.G. Murphy & Co. in November, 1876. During the Lincoln County War, he stayed as far behind the scenes as possible. After the McSween home burned in July, 1878, he was rarely seen in Lincoln.
In early 1879, he moved to Las Cruces and got involved in various cattle ventures with 3rd Judicial District Attorney William L. Rynerson. Riley soon homesteaded in nearby Organ, married Anne Cuniffe in 1882, and had three children. He was elected Don Ana County Tax Assessor in 1889. In 1894, Riley bought a herd of cattle, drove it north to a 1,000-acre range near Fowler, Colorado, in 1895, and settled there.
Riley shrewdly negotiated a complicated, but highly satisfactory water rights settlement (for partner Rynerson, rancher Tom Catron and himself) from the citizens of thirsty Tularosa, New Mexico, in the early 1900s. Afterward, he returned to Colorado, where he divided his residency between Colorado Springs and his Fowler ranch east of Pueblo. Riley died of pneumonia in Colorado Springs on February 16, 1916.
