The following is from a work-in-progress about the history of Fullerton. You can support my ongoing research and writing on Patreon.
Dr. Danforth C. Cowles was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1875. His father was Dr. Ransom F. Cowles, who served as a surgeon in the Confederate army during the Civil War.
In his early years he drove a mule in coal mines, and eventually worked his way through Virginia Military College, graduating in 1892 as a civil engineer. He worked as an engineer for some large mining companies before going back to school to get his medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1901.
He worked for two years at Bellevue Hospital in New York, before doing post-graduate work abroad in Edinburgh, Vienna, and Paris. He returned to Minneapolis, where he worked as a doctor for 18 years.
In 1900, Cowles married Ragnhild Sorensen. She died in 1914, leaving him one child, Danforth Jr.
In 1918 he moved to Fullerton where he built up a successful medical practice. That same year he married Anna Hicks, a nurse.
Source:
History of Orange County, California: with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present by Samuel Armor. Los Angeles Historic Record Co, 1921.
Fullerton History 