Two American Silver Three-Handled Cups Of Denver Interest, Gorham Mfg. Co., Providence, Rhode Island, 1898 and 1907

The inscription on the first cup reads:

Special Prize Awarded to John M. Kuykendall for best General effect in Decorated Vehicles - Festival of Mountain and Plain - Denver Colorado - October 4, 5 & 6 - 1898; with additional names below.

The inscription on the second cup reads:

Presented by the Sons of Colorado - For Best heavy Harness displayed by the Gentlemen's Driving and Riding Club of Denver, August 1st 1907 and Won by John M Kuykendall.

According to The History of the Kuykendall Family (1919):

MR. JOHN M. KUYKENDALL, of Denver, Colorado, son of Judge W. L. Kuykendall... Mr. John M. inherited from his father a large measure of energy and business capacity, which he has used with marked success in life. He was born in Platte county, Missouri, April 25, 1860. He attended the public schools of Cheyenne, Wyoming, and later completed his education in Racine College, Wisconsin. His first experience with the business activities of life was with his father in the sheep business, during about twelve years. His first business undertaking of considerable magnitude was in 1875, when he organized the Wisconsin-Wyoming Land and Cattle Company, of the J. L Case Threshing Machine Co., with a capital stock of $145,000, J. L Case as President, and J. M. Kuykendall as General Manager. Ten years later he organized a cattle company operated on Medicine Bow, in the same county, which was known as the J. M. Kuykendall Company, with a capital stock of $60,000, of which he was President and General Manager. In the year 1892 he organized the Columbia Coach Company, capital stock, $60,000, which was operated in Chicago during the World's Fair. Of this company he was President and Manager. In the year 1890, he organized the Denver Omnibus and Cab Company with a capital of $100,000 and in 1910 he reorganized the Denver Omnibus and Cab Company under the laws of Wyoming, and increased the capital stock to $525,000, and since then has increased the assets of the company to over $1,000,000. The business has gone on increasing from year to year, and he still continues to be president and manager. He has besides these, business interests in other large enterprises in mining and irrigation operations.

While he has been engrossed in business he has found time to look after social amenities. He is director of the Denver Club, the Overland Park Country Club, Denver Athletic Club, Chamber of Commerce, and numerous other organizations. He was elected in 1887 member of the Territorial Legislature of Wyoming, when he was about twenty-seven years of age. His first experience in a legislature was as page of the first Territorial Legislature of Wyoming, when he was nine years old. He saved up a little money this way, and put it into sheep with his father's business. He married Aliss Anna Thomason, in Cheyenne, Wyoming. January 1, 1889, who was at the time an orphan, the daughter of Zechariah Thomason, one of the pioneer cattle men of Wyoming, They have never had any children. All Mr. Kuykendall's life has been spent in the west, mostly on the frontier. He has been successful in his business undertakings and naturally feels a great attachment to the Colorado country. He sees Denver as the fairest spot in all the earth to him, and believes in its future and the future of the great state of which it is the metropolis. Here he has put in the best energies of the prime of life, and has seen a great and beautiful city spring up from a mere village and become a charming metropolis, the center of trade of an intermountain empire. He is happy to have done his part in the great transformation.