Charles J. Colden (August 24, 1870 – April 15, 1938) was a 20th-century California politician who served in the Los Angeles City Council and from 1933 to 1938 as a member of the U.S. Congress. Biography Colden was born on a farm in Peoria County, Illinois, and moved at age 10 with his parents to Nodaway County, Missouri, in 1880. He attended grade school at the Ireland Schoolhouse near their farm, and later went to Maryville High School some ten miles distant in Maryville, Missouri. He attended Stanberry Normal School in Stanberry, Missouri, and Shenandoah College in Shenandoah, Iowa. Colden taught school in Missouri and Iowa from 1889 to 1896. He was the editor and publisher of the Parnell Sentinel from 1896 to 1900 and the Nodaway Forum (which became the Maryville Daily Forum, in Maryville, Missouri, from 1900 to 1908. He was president of the board of regents of Northwest Missouri Teachers College from 1905 to 1908. Colden Hall at the school is named for him. From 1908 to 1912 he was in the construction business in Kansas City, Missouri. Colden took a vacation tour of the West in 1912 and "was attracted to the possibilities" of the Los Angeles harbor in San Pedro and soon settled there. and continued in the real estate and building business. He was the president of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce from 1922 to 1924. He died in Washington, D.C., and was buried in Roosevelt Memorial Park Cemetery in Gardena, California, but in 1965 his body was reinterred at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. He was survived by his wife, Clara N. Colden; a sister, Mrs. B.C. Hall, two daughters, Mrs. Lester Hawthorne and Abbe Colden; and two sons, John C. Colden and Charles J. Colden Jr. Political life Missouri Colden was a member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 1901 to 1905. California Planning He was a member of the city's first planning commission in 1920, which at that time was composed of 51 people appointed by the City Council "to work out an organized, comprehensive plan of city development." Other notable members were Eugene Biscailuz, Charles A. Holland, Evan Lewis and W.H. Workman Jr. Harbor Colden was president of the Los Angeles Harbor commission from 1923 to 1925. While on the commission, he worked vigorously for the Harbor Belt Line that linked all the port