Harry Koch (businessman)


Hotze "Harry" Koch was a Dutch-born American businessman who founded the Quanah Tribune-Chief newspaper. He was the father of Fred C. Koch, founder of Koch Industries.

Early life and education

Koch was born in the Dutch Frisian town of Workum, Netherlands. He was the second child of the physician Johan Anthon Koch and Gatske Hotzes Jorritsma. Koch's paternal grandfather had been a shipowner from Sande in German East 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 and, Koch emigrated to the United States in 1888. He first lived in Dutch enclaves in Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan, 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. At the time, Quanah had three newspapers, the Quanah Eagle, the Quanah Chief and the Quanah Tribune. He had saved enough to purchase the Quanah Tribune and then merged it with the Quanah Chief in 1897 forming the Quanah Tribune-Chief. He was also a founding shareholder of the Quanah, Acme and Pacific Railway. 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 and wrote opinion pieces against trade unions, retirement pensions, and the regulation of banks.

Personal life

In 1898, Koch married Margaret Mixson. She was the daughter of Hester and John Baptist Mixson of Quanah, Texas. They had two sons: