James Benton Grant (January 2, 1848 – November 1, 1911) was an American mining magnate, mining engineer, Confederate Army soldier who served as the third governor of Colorado from 1883 to 1885 before dying in 1911.
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Early life, American Civil War, and education
Grant was born on January 2, 1848, on a plantation in Russell County, Alabama. Prior to the American Civil War, Grant's family owned a plantation. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Grant enlisted as a private in the 20th Alabama Light Artillery regiment in the Confederate Army.
While his immediate family was financially destroyed after the American Civil War, a wealthy uncle of Grant's who lived in Davenport, Iowa, paid for Grant's secondary education. After the war, Grant attended what is now Iowa State University for two years and then transferred to Cornell University, which he attended from 1873 to 1874. He then attended Germany's Freiberg University of Mining, which was, at the time, one of the leading schools in the world for mineral engineering. There, he studied metallurgy. Grant then worked in the mines of Austria to gain practical mining experience before returning to the United States two years later.