Representative Curtis Coe Bean

Curtis Coe “C. C.” Bean (January 4, 1828 – February 1, 1904) was an American businessman and Republican politician who became prominent in the economic and political life of the Arizona Territory. Over the course of his career he served one term as Arizona Territory’s delegate to the United States Congress, sat in the Tennessee House of Representatives, and was a member of the Arizona Territorial Legislature. He engaged in a wide range of business ventures, including merchandising, ranching, and transportation, but was best known for his extensive mining interests, particularly in silver and copper.

Bean was born on January 4, 1828, in Tamworth, Carroll County, New Hampshire, to Josiah J. Bean and Olive (Sanborn) Bean. His father died while he was still young, and in 1837 he moved with his mother to Gilmanton, New Hampshire. He attended local schools before pursuing advanced studies at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, a leading New England preparatory school. He subsequently enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he completed his higher education, laying the foundation for his later work in business, law, and public affairs.

In the mid‑1850s, Bean moved to New York City, where he secured a position at the federal custom house, an important center of revenue collection and commercial regulation. While employed there, he became involved in the brokerage business and undertook the study of law. He was admitted to the bar, although he rarely practiced, preferring commercial pursuits. His business activities met with sufficient success that by 1859 he was able to contribute $2,500 toward the creation of a private railroad, a substantial sum for the period and an indication of his early interest in transportation and infrastructure. During the American Civil War he remained in New York City and served as clerk of the New York City school board, participating in the administration of the city’s public education system at a time of rapid urban growth.

In 1864, Bean left New York and moved to Columbia, Tennessee, later relocating to Nashville. He entered state politics and, as a Republican during the Reconstruction era, served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1867 and 1868. During his time in Tennessee he married Mary Margaret Bradshow. The couple had three daughters: Mary, Grace, and Blanche. His experience in Tennessee’s legislature introduced him to the challenges of post–Civil War governance and helped establish his credentials as a public official before his later move to the American Southwest.

Bean and his wife moved to the Arizona Territory in June 1868, settling in Prescott, then the territorial capital and a growing commercial center. By October of that year he had opened a business office and begun selling grain to the U.S. Army, which maintained posts throughout the territory. He purchased corn from local farmers, paying 7½ cents per pound in gold, and sold it to the military at 8 cents per pound. By 1872 his operations had expanded significantly; he purchased 800,000 pounds of corn in New Mexico Territory at 6½ cents per pound and transported it to Arizona on a 33‑day journey by ox cart. In addition to supplying grain and hay, he operated a ranch near Fort Verde and a sutler store serving soldiers and settlers. Seeking to broaden his labor force, in 1873 he publicly advertised for any Indigenous person “willing to work and earn an honest dollar” to cut hay for Fort Verde, and he offered to provide free vegetables if awarded a contract to operate a farm near Fort McDowell. To keep costs down, he imported goods from St. Louis, Missouri, rather than relying on the more expensive markets of San Francisco, California.

Mining soon became Bean’s primary business interest. After visiting a mine for the first time in January 1869, he began acquiring mining claims and, by 1870, was shipping thousands of pounds of silver ore to San Francisco. He expanded his activities to include several milling operations and the acquisition and sale of mining equipment. Some of his mining properties were held in his and his wife’s names, while others were organized through partnerships. Among his partners were notable figures such as former territorial governor and explorer John C. Frémont, attorney Charles Silent, and lawyer and politician Thomas Fitch. In 1880 he began to move aggressively into copper mining, assembling an extensive portfolio of copper properties in Arizona before selling most of them to the Phelps Dodge Corporation, which was emerging as a dominant force in the region’s copper industry.

Bean’s political ambitions in Arizona developed alongside his business career. He first sought election as Arizona Territory’s delegate to Congress in 1874. Running as a Republican, he lost to Democrat Hiram Sanford Stevens by a vote of 1,076 to 1,442. The contest was marked by irregularities, including the Yavapai County Board of Supervisors’ disqualification of 650 votes cast for Bean in the Little Colorado and Lower Lynx Creek precincts. Witnesses testified that no election had been held at Lower Lynx Creek, and that although only 106 ballots had been cast at the Little Colorado precinct, 385 votes were reported in the returns. Bean announced another candidacy for delegate on April 29, 1876, but withdrew from the race after he was accidentally shot with his own weapon a month later. In 1878 he turned his attention to territorial politics and was elected to the council, the upper house of the Arizona Territorial Legislature, serving in the 1879 session. During that session he advocated the creation of the office of territorial mineralogist, a position proposed by Governor Frémont that could have carried a salary of up to $3,000 per year and, controversially, might have been held by the governor in addition to his existing office. In 1880 friends urged Bean to run for mayor of Prescott, but the effort was abandoned when it was discovered that his residence lay outside the city limits, rendering him ineligible.

Bean reemerged as a candidate for territorial delegate in 1884. On September 15 of that year he was nominated by the territorial Republican convention. His platform largely reflected the national Republican program but added planks tailored to territorial concerns, including a demand that federal appointments in the territory go to residents of Arizona, support for free public education, increased territorial control over railroad land grants, and calls for reductions in both the size of Indian reservations and federal expenditures on Native American affairs. His Democratic opponent was Cotesworth Pinckney Head, a prominent Prescott merchant. Bean won the election with 6,747 votes to Head’s 5,595, and he took his seat as Arizona Territory’s delegate in the Forty‑ninth Congress. As a member of the Republican Party representing Arizona, he contributed to the legislative process during his one term in office, participating in the democratic process at a significant period in American history and representing the interests of his territorial constituents.

Upon his arrival in Congress, Bean was assigned to the House Committee on Mines and Mining, a fitting placement given his extensive experience in the industry. In Congress he secured legislation granting a right of way for the Southern Pacific Railroad through the Maricopa and Pima Indian reservations, enabling construction of a spur line from the company’s main route at Maricopa to Phoenix and thereby strengthening the territorial capital’s transportation links. He opposed the Harrison Act of 1886, which restricted the Arizona Territorial Legislature’s authority to grant subsidies to railroads and to incur additional territorial debt, but his efforts to block the measure were unsuccessful. Among his other proposals were a federal reward for the capture or killing of the Apache leader Geronimo, the addition of another judge to the Arizona territorial supreme court to address judicial workload, and incentives to encourage the development of artesian wells to support settlement and agriculture in the arid territory. In 1886 Republicans unanimously renominated him for a second term. The territorial Republican platform that year criticized President Grover Cleveland’s administration as overly favorable to Wall Street interests, called for pensions for Union Army veterans, and endorsed a prohibition on Chinese immigration. In the general election, however, Bean was defeated by Democrat Marcus A. Smith, who received 6,355 votes to Bean’s 4,472.

After leaving Congress, Bean returned to his mining and business interests in Arizona. His prominence in territorial affairs led some Republicans to view him as a potential candidate for governor in 1889, but he withdrew his name from consideration, influenced in part by his wife’s dissatisfaction with life on the frontier and by his own growing financial concerns. In 1890 he moved back to New York City, though he retained a legal residence in Arizona to protect and manage his western holdings. He lived in New York for the remainder of his life, making periodic trips to the West to oversee his investments and properties. Curtis Coe Bean died on February 1, 1904. He was interred in Green‑Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York, closing a life that bridged New England, the postwar South, and the rapidly developing American Southwest.