Hotze "Harry" Koch ( ; 22 October 1867 – 21 June 1942) was a Dutch-born American businessman who founded the ''Quanah Tribune-Chief'' newspaper. He was the father of

Fred C. Koch Fred Chase Koch ( ; September 23, 1900 – November 17, 1967) was an American chemical engineer and entrepreneur who founded the oil refinery firm that later became Koch Industries, a privately held company which -- under the principal owner ...

(1900–1967), founder of

Koch Industries Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in the ...

Early life and education

Koch was born in the Dutch Frisian town of

Workum Workum () is a city located in the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân in Friesland, Netherlands. It received city rights in 1399 and is one of the eleven cities of Friesland. It had a population of 4,435 in January 2017.Sande in German

East Frisia East Frisia or East Friesland (german: Ostfriesland; ; stq, Aastfräislound) is a historic region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is primarily located on the western half of the East Frisian peninsula, to the east of West Frisia ...

who had shipwrecked off the coast of Workum, where he eventually married the mayor's daughter. Koch's mother died during the birth of her eighth child, and his father remarried Petronella de Swart, the daughter of a banker. Harry Koch had five surviving siblings and another five half-siblings who all remained in the Netherlands. After working as a printer's apprentice in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

and (Germany), Koch emigrated to the United States in 1888. He first lived in Dutch enclaves in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

and

Grand Rapids, Michigan Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is th ...

, where he worked for Dutch-language newspapers.

Career and politics

Around 1890 he moved to Eastern Texas, where the humid climate drove him soon West to settle in the railroad town Quanah.Freke Vuijst,
Aartsvijanden van Obama
'',

Vrij Nederland ''Vrij Nederland'' (Free Netherlands) is a Dutch magazine, established during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II as an underground newspaper. It has since grown into a magazine. The originally weekly and now monthly magazi ...

, 2 March 2012 (in Dutch) At the time, Quanah had three newspapers, the ''Quanah Eagle'', the ''Quanah Chief'' and the ''Quanah Tribune''.The New Netherland Institute: "Dutch American Entrepreneurs Chapter 10: "Successful Entrepreneurs"
. Retrieved 20 January 2013 He had saved enough to purchase the ''Quanah Tribune'' and then merged it with the ''Quanah Chief'' in 1897 forming the ''Quanah Tribune-Chief''.Texas Press: "1918–19 Harry Koch Quanah Tribune Chief"
17 December 2008 He was also a founding shareholder of the

Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway (QA&P) was a Rail freight transport, freight railroad that operated between the Red River of the South, Red River and Floydada, Texas, from 1902 until it was merged into the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1981. ...

. Koch used his newspaper to promote this railroad as well as his libertarian political ideas. During the depression, he fiercely opposed Franklin D. Roosevelt's

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...

and wrote opinion pieces against trade unions, retirement pensions, and the regulation of banks.

Personal life

In 1898, Koch married Margaret (Mattie) Mixson (born in 1874 in Quanah, TX; died 1941).Mixson Family Genealogy
Retrieved 20 January 2013 She was the daughter of Hester (née Blessingame) and John Baptist Mixson (1851–1927) of Quanah, Texas (he was the son of Simeon Mixson and Margaret Campbell). They had two sons:The Exiled (reprinted from the Texas Observer): "The Birth of the Koch Clan: It All Started In a Little Texas Town Called Quanah" By Yasha Levine
7 November 2011 * Anton Koch worked as advertising manager at the Tribune-Chief. *

(1900–1967) went on to found

References

External links

Quanah Tribune-Chief frontpage
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Koch, Harry 1867 births 1942 deaths 19th-century Dutch people American newspaper publishers (people) American people of Frisian descent Dutch emigrants to the United States Dutch printers

Harry Harry may refer to: TV shows * ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin * ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons * ''Harry'' (talk show), a 2016 American daytime talk show ...

People from Nijefurd Old Right (United States) 19th-century American businesspeople Dutch businesspeople People from Quanah, Texas American libertarians