George H. Pradt Valencia County, New Mexico

George H. Pradt, a civil engineer living in Laguna, was born in Pennsylvania, reared in Wisconsin, and came to New Mexico in 1869 to make a survey of the Navajo Indian reservation. After completing this work he returned to the east, but in the meantime had become greatly interested in and attached to this part of the country, and resolved to locate permanently in the Territory. Accordingly he arrived in 1872 at Santa Fe, and was employed in the surveyor general's office. He made his headquarters at Santa Fe while engaged on government surveys until 1876, when he came to Laguna, where he has since lived. He acted as public land surveyor until 1903, and also did private surveying and general engineering work, while for several years he was county surveyor of Valencia County. He has devoted about five years to the cattle business, and whatever he undertakes he carries forward to successful completion.

Mr. Pradt has not only become well known in connection with the practice of his chosen profession, but also has a wide and favorable acquaintance by reason of what he has done in behalf of public welfare. For one term he was governor of the Laguna Pueblo Indians. He served in the New Mexico militia with the rank of first lieutenant of Company I, Second Regiment of Infantry, in 1882, while in 7883 he became captain and in the same year was made major of the First Regiment of Cavalry. He acted as lieutenant-colonel from 1885 until 1887 in the Second Regiment of Cavalry, and in 1890 was commissioned captain of Company C of the First Regiment of Infantry, while in 1892 and 1893 he was major and inspector of rifle practice on the governor's staff. He also served in Company K of the Fortieth Regiment of Wisconsin Volunteers as corporal in the Civil war, and in Company A. Forty-ninth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and participated in many engagements along the Mississippi and in various military movements in northern Mississippi and Tennessee, mostly against the bushwhackers. He is a member of G. K. Warren Post, G. A. R., Albuquerque, and thus maintains pleasant relations with his old army comrades. He has acted as deputy United States marshal and justice of the peace, and the duties of those positions were performed in a most capable manner. He displays the same fidelity of which he gave proof when on southern battlefields in the Civil war and which has always characterized his public service, whether in office or out of it.

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Source: History of New Mexico, Its Resources and People, Volume II, Pacific States Publishing Co., 1907.