Robert Fay Rockwell, Colorado Republican politician, rancher, and businessman, was born in 1886 in Cortland, New York. He attended public schools in Hornell, New York and then attended the Hill school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. He then attended Princeton University from 1905-1906. Rockwell moved to Paonia, Colorado in 1907, purchased a ranch and began a lifetime career of cattle ranching and fruit cultivation.
Robert Rockwell’s political career began in 1916 when he was elected as a Republican to the Colorado House of Representatives. He served two terms, leaving to become Colorado State Senator from 1920 to 1923. In 1923, he left the Colorado Senate to become Lieutenant Governor, serving in that role until 1924. In 1924, he launched an unsuccessful bid for governor. Rockwell was defeated in the Republican gubernatorial primaries by a candidate affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. Rockwell had earned the Klan’s ire by refusing to promise that he would not appoint Catholics to state offices. In 1930, Rockwell again ran for governor unsuccessfully. Rockwell retired from electoral politics for most of the 1930s, but still served on the Colorado State Board of Agriculture from 1932-1946. He returned to the Colorado Senate in 1938, and then left the Colorado Senate to take a vacant seat in the United States House of Representatives. Rockwell served in the US Congress from December 1941 until January 1949.
Rockwell served on the following committees in his 30 year involvement in Colorado politics: Mines and Mining, Labor and Industrial Relations, Agriculture and Irrigation, Livestock, and Fish, Forestry, and Game. In the United States Congress, Rockwell served on thee Indian Affairs, Irrigation and Reclamation, Mines and Mining, War Claims, and Public Lands committees.
Rockwell also served as chairman of the board of directors of the Tuttle and Rockwell Co. in Hornell, NY and of the Rockwell Co. in Corning, NY. He died September 29, 1950.
From the guide to the Robert Rockwell Papers, 1886-1950, (University of Colorado at Boulder Libraries. Archives Dept.)
