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Napoleon Bonaparte Brown

Napoleon Bonaparte Brown (1834 – March 18, 1910) was an American businessman and politician who lived in Kansas and Missouri in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[2] He is most known as the namesake and builder of the Brown Grand Theatre in Concordia, Kansas.[2]

Early life [ edit ]

Brown was named after Napoleon Bonaparte by his parents James & Nancy Brown. The 1850 Pike County, Illinois, census gives his age as 16 at that time. A later census (1900) in Concordia, KS gives his birthdate as Oct 1833.[3] He appeared to have two siblings: a brother, Benjamin age 14; and a sister named May or Mary aged 11 listed in the census as well.[4] Later military records list his hometown as Concord, Illinois, in neighboring Morgan County.[5] until he resigned on January 17, 1865.[6]

Military career [ edit ]

"Colonel" Brown enlisted in the 101st Illinois Infantry Regiment on January 3, 1864, and given the rank of major. Major Brown served in "B" Company[5] until he resigned on January 17, 1865[6]—the very day the 101st crossed into South Carolina from Georgia under General William Tecumseh Sherman.[5] Cloud county records show that he was paid the pension ($25.00) of a major.[7] After he retired from the military, he "promoted himself" to the rank of colonel.[8]

In a letter to the editor of the Kansas Blade (now the Concordia Blade-Empire), Brown claimed that he enlisted as a private on April 22, 1862, and was subsequently promoted to captain, major, and brevet lieutenant colonel.[9]

Business and philanthropy [ edit ]

"Colonel" Brown served in the state legislatures for both Kansas and Missouri[8] and was a prominent banker in Kansas during its early years of development as the owner of the first bank in Cloud County, Kansas.[10] N. B. Brown & Co., founded in 1878[11] with a rumored "suitcase full of money" that he had with him upon his arrival.[8] Colonel Brown and his wife Katherine (Katie) then built Brownstone Hall,[12] a 23-room Victorian-style 5,000-square-foot (460 m2) stone mansion built in Concordia in 1883.[13] Colonel Brown served as a Republican first in the Missouri House of Representatives,[14] and then in the Kansas State Senate.[15]

In 1905, Colonel Brown commissioned the building of the Brown Grand Theatre and entrusted its completion to his son, Earl Van Dom Brown. The theatre was completed in 1907.[16]

Politics [ edit ]

As a state Senator in Kansas, Brown fought a losing battle to restore Concordia Normal School as a state-run institution. The school was one of several Normal schools placed throughout the state in 1874 under governor Thomas A. Osborn, but was consolidated by the state legislature in 1876.[17] The state normal school would later become Emporia State University.

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