Ira M. Cobe (1866-1931)

Ira Maurice Cobe was a born in 1866 in Boston Massachusetts. to Mark H. and Eva Cobe. He married Annie E. Watts, of Belfast, Maine, in 1892. He was a lawyer, investment banker, financier, and early automotive enthusiast who went on to found the Cobe Trophy Race in 1909. Educated in Boston, he moved to Chicago in 1892 where he founded Cobe & Mckinnon. He went on to become a central player in the Chicago railroad industry. He served as president of the Assets Realization Company, chairman of the board of the Chicago City Railways Company, and the director of the Chicago Title & Trust company, Calumet and South Chicago Railway Company, Hammond, Whiting, and East Chicago Railway company, National Bank of the Republic, and the Financial Corporation of America.

He summered in Northport, Maine, where he built his first summer cottage, Bohemia. In 1912, he broke ground on Oak Hall (then know as Hillside Farm). He died at Oak Hall in 1931, two years after his wife Annie passed away. They had no children.