Joseph Edward Bates was born in Chautauqua, New York.  He was the oldest of the six children of Alvah and Elvira Polly (Curtis) Bates.  His family were farmers and his parents both died in their forties.  His father passed when Joseph was 18 and his mother just five years after, on the 9th of September, 1858.   While this left Bates a bit rudderless at age 23 it also provided him a four figure inheritance with which to start life in the west.

Bates first found adventure working in the lumber camps along the Muskegon River in Michigan.  But his eyes looked further west to something more valuable than timber.  On June 28th, 1860 Bates came to Denver as one of its first pioneers.  The next year he returned to New York to marry Cordelia C. Northrop, of Brockport, New York.  Their union would produce four children.

The newlyweds returned to Denver and Joseph opened a general store.   In 1867 Joseph helped start the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company, which encouraged the railroad to come to Colorado.  Later he helped start Denver's first fire company.  These were just two of many organizations in which Bates was involved in the early days of Colorado.  

In 1869 He, Charles C. Johnson and Robert R. McCormick partnered to form the Denver Ale Brewing Company.  McCormick brewed the ale, Johnson brewed the beer and Bates was the money man. When McCormick dropped out in 1871 the firm became known familiarly as Bates and Johnson.

The business of providing beer to a boomtown of thirsty miners made Joseph E. Bates a wealthy and popular man.  Bates was elected city councilor in 1868, then was elected Mayor of the city of Denver in 1872. He was again elected Mayor in 1885.   He retired from the brewing business in 1879.

Joseph Edward Bates died after a long illness on September 23, 1900 at the age of 65, just one week after the passing of his wife Cordelia..