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H. Fred Cox Pages 461-462 - H. Fred Cox is one of the progressive and successful exponents of manufacturing enterprise in the city of Grand Rapids, where he is president of the H. F. Cox Company, manufacturers and erectors of sheet metal products. The company owns and utilizes a modern building of two stories at 601-3 Ottawa avenue, northwest, and of the company the wife of Mr. Cox is secretary and treasurer, her interposition being not merely nominal but of efficient executive order. Mr. Cox was born in Cambridge, England, September 23, 1876, and was three years of age when his parents came to the United States and established their home in Ionia county, Michigan, where they still maintain their home. The father, Job Cox, was long and actively associated with farm industry in that county but is now living virtually retired in the city of Ionia. H. Fred Cox gained his early education in the public schools of Ionia and was twenty-one years of age when he came to Grand Rapids and entered upon an apprenticeship in the establishment of the W. C. Hopson company, large manufacturers of sheet metal products. He remained with this concern eight years, and became a skilled artisan in all lines of sheet metal work. Upon severing his connection with the Hopson company Mr. Cox formed a partnership and became junior member of the firm of Behler & Cox, which engaged in the hardware business at the corner of Robinson road and Lake drive, where the firm also made provisions for sheet metal and roofing work. Eventually Mr. Cox purchased the interest of his partner, and in 1913 the business was incorporated, under the title of the H. F. Cox Company, that year having been marked also by the erection of the company’s present building, the mechanical and general equipment of which is of the best modern type. The company manufacture and install all kinds of sheet metal work, including that for heating and ventilating systems, cornices, skylights, fire doors, roofing, cast-bronze conductor, guards, etc., besides manufacturing steel office and factory equipment. Mr. Cox is a loyal member of the Grand Rapids Association of Commerce and the local Builders and Traders Exchange, besides having membership in the Michigan Sheet Metal and Roofing Contractors Association and the Grand Rapids Credit Association. His political alignment is with the Republican party and he and his wife are members of the Central Church of Christ. In 1910 Mr. Cox wedded Miss Louise Fletcher, who was born and reared in Grand Rapids and who is a daughter of Joseph and Phoebe (Odell) Fletcher, her father having been for forty years foreman in the local factory of the Rindge-Kalmbach-Logie Shoe Company. Mr. and Mrs. Cox have no children. |