The Denver Bar Association
By Hugh McLean
ooking back twenty-six years through the records of the Denver Bar Association to its organization meeting on October 31, 1891, one finds much interesting history and encounters the names of many who were well known, some of whom are still with us and still active at the bar and in the Association, many of whom have passed on. Judge Moses Hallett addressed the first meeting, speaking of the necessity for such an organization, and the purposes which it might serve. He seems to have been largely instrumental in its formation, as he was some years later in the organization of the Colorado Bar Association. J. E. Lomery, later for many years the faithful secretary and treasurer of the Association, did the active and necessary work of circulating a written call for the organization meeting, securing the signatures of one hundred fifty-nine members of the bench and bar to that document. Albert E. Pattison, later one of the Supreme Court Commissioners, was elected the first president. Among the names of those participating prominently in the early meetings, we find those of Charles S. Thomas, T. J. O'Donnell, R. D. Thompson, James B. Belford, William E. Beck, W. S. Decker, Hugh Butler, John H. Denison, George C. Manly, and others. A list of the presidents of the Association from its organization to the present time may be of interest. It is as follows:
| 1892 | Albert E. Pattison |
| 1893 | George C. Norris |
| 1894 | Thomas J. O'Donnell |
| 1895 | Gustav C. Bartels |
| 1896 | Cass E. Herrington |
