USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Milwaukee > History of Milwaukee, city and county, Volume III > Part 101
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Jacoh G. Laubenheimer obtained his early education in the Tenth District public school of Milwaukee and in 1888 pursued a commercial course in Charles Stell's Business College, while in 1893 he hecame a student in McDonald's Business College. It was in
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1888 that he made his initial step in the business world as a clerk in the office of the A. F. & L. Manegold Stone Company at the corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets and in the following year he became assistant bookkeeper for the firm of H. Moores & Com- pany of City Hall Square. In 1891 he entered the employ of the Wisconsin Telephone Company and two years later, or on the 1st of February, 1893, was appointed assistant secretary of the Milwaukee police department, with which he has been continuously identified to the present time. He was appointed patrolman on the 28th of June, 1899, was made a detective on the 6th of March. 1901, and received appointment to the position of chief of police on the 7th of May, 1921. His long service in the police department and his steady rise to the position of chief stands in incontrovertible evidence of his signal ability and faithfulness, and he is now directing the activities of the department with the utmost efficiency, leading to highly satisfactory results.
On the 21st of August, 1912, Mr. Laubenheimer was united in marriage to Miss Catherine McCormack, daughter of Michael and Catherine (Skeffington) McCormack, who came to America from Ireland in 1863 and settled in Milwaukee. Mr. and Mrs. McCormack had been married in Ireland in 1861 and the former passed away on the 4th of August, 1918. To Mr. and Mrs. Laubenheimer have been born two children, John and Jane. Mr. Laubenheimer's course has ever been characterized by high principles and worthy motives and the circle of his friends is an extensive and continually grow- ing one.
HARRY W. LUSCHER.
Harry W. Luscher, secretary and treasurer of the United States Glue Company and president of the United States Gelatine Company, also secretary and treasurer of the United Fertilizer Company of Carrollville, Wisconsin, has through his varied and im- portant business connections contributed in large measure to the commercial develop- ment of the city in which he makes his home. Enterprise and progress are resident factors in his make-up. He readily recognizes and utilizes opportunities and as the years have passed he has achieved success along commendable and legitimate lines that others might well follow. He was born in Milwaukee, June 28, 1881, and is a son of Adolph J. and Anna (Reichel) Luscher, the former a native of Wisconsin, while the latter was born in California and in early life came to Milwaukee. Adolph J. Luscher was a salesman and is now deceased.
Harry W. Luscher was educated in the public schools of this city and after he had completed his course was employed by the Geuder & Paeschke Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee, remaining with that house for three years. In 1899 he became associated with the United States Glue Company as office hoy and has worked his way steadily up- ward through the various intermediate positions, filling all the various positions in the office and in the chemical laboratory and also serving as assistant superintendent of the factory, after which he was promoted to the position of general superintendent and next became general manager. He was then called to executive office in his election as secretary and treasurer, which position he still occupies. This is the largest in- dividual unit glue plant in the world and normally employs five hundred people. The plant covers about thirty-five acres and the company owns the village of Carrollville and also a farm of about ninety acres. From a most obscure position Mr. Luscher has steadily advanced until he is one of the officers in the largest institution of the kind in the world. He is thoroughly practical in all that he does, possesses sound judgment, is notably energetic and farsighted and has thoroughly acquainted himself with every phase of the business under his control. The officers of the United States Glue Company are: Fred Vogel, Sr., president: Adolph Finkler, vice president; and Harry W. Luscher, secretary and treasurer. The officers of the United States Gelatine Company are: Harry W. Luscher, president; E. A. Meier, vice president; and Robert C. Ramstack, secretary and treasurer. The officers of the United Fertilizer Company are: W. G. Hanson, president; Frank L. Weyenberg, vice president; and Harry W. Luscher, secre- tary and treasurer. It will thus be seen that Mr. Luscher occupies an executive position in the three corporations, which are more or less closely allied. He is thus active in the control of extensive interests. and while thoroughly familiar with the great principles and important features of the business, he does not scorn to give his attention to the smallest detail, recognizing the fact that each in its way features in the attainment of success.
On the 22d of September, 190S, Mr. Luscher was married to Miss Adeline Marks, of Milwaukee, and they have one daughter, Lorraine. During the World war Mr. Luscher was chairman of all the committee war work of Carrollville and devoted a great deal of his time to his duties in this connection, receiving a service card in recognition of his activities. He is a member of the Calumet Club and fraternally is connected with the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, while in Masonry he is widely known, having at- tained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and also become a member of Tripoli
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Temple of the Mystic Shrine. His outside interests have been sutficient to constitute an even balance to his intense business activity, thus leading to the development of a well rounded character. He is classed with the forceful and resourceful business men of the city and in fact is an outstanding figure in connection with the productive industries of southern Wisconsin.
JOSEPH A. PURTELL, M. D.
Dr. Joseph A. Purtell, who for twenty-three years has been engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery in Milwaukee, deserves much credit for what he has accomp- lished. He is a self-educated as well as a self-made man, for he earned the money that enabled him to meet the expenses of a college course in preparation for his professional career. The same spirit of determination and laudable ambition has actuated him in his chosen life work and rendered his service of marked valne to his fellowmen. Dr. Purtell is a native of Wisconsin, his birth having occurred in the town of Monches on the 8th of April, 1873. His father, John Purtell, a merchant, is now deceased. The family num- bered five sons, four of whom are in Milwaukee, and all are professional men, two being engaged in the practice of medicine and two in the practice of dentistry. These are: Dr. Edward J. Purtell, mentioned elsewhere in this work; Dr. Joseph A. Purtell of this review; and Dr. John E. and Dr. Thomas A. Purtell, who are devoting their attention to dental surgery. The fifth brother is Francis L. Purtell, who is a merchant in Monches, Wisconsin, and is the youngest of the family. There are also five sisters who are yet living, while two children died in infancy.
Dr. Joseph A. Purtell acquired his early education in his native town and after- ward took up the profession of school teaching, which he followed for five years. Thus he earned the money to attend medical college. He was also a student in the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, for several terms while he was yet engaged in teaching and thus he laid broad and deep the foundation upon which to rear his pro- fessional knowledge. He entered Rush Medical College of Chicago and on the comple- tion of the prescribed course was graduated with the M. D. degree in 1899. Since then he has been in active practice in Milwaukee and for five years has occupied his present office at No. 198 Twenty-seventh street. He is a member of the faculty of the Marquette Medical College and is chief of staff at Trinity Flospital, also a member of the staff of Misericordia Hospital. He is widely known through his writings, which have been published in medical journals, and in educational work he is also professor of physical diagnosis at the Marquette Dental College. In the medical department he is likewise associate professor of internal medicine and he is a valued representative of the Mil- waukee County Medical Society, of which he is now serving as treasurer, of the Milwau- kee Medical Society, the Wisconsin State Medical Society, the Tri-State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He also belongs to the Milwaukee Obstetrical Society, of which be has been the president.
In 1903 Dr. Purtell was married to Mrs. Charlotte Isabel Walsh of Milwaukee, who was a graduate nurse. They have two daughters, Aileen and Virginia, aged respectively fifteen and thirteen years and now students in the Sacred Heart Convent at Lake Forest, Illinois. The parents are members of the Roman Catholic church and Dr. Purtell belongs to the Milwaukee Athletic Club and also to the Milwaukee Automobile Club. Ile greatly enjoys fishing and outdoor sports, but the demands made upon him for professional attention leave him little leisure.
FRED A. VOGEL.
Fred A. Vogel, well known in business circles in Milwaukee as the general manager of the firm of Pfister & Vogel, has for an extensive period been identified with this line of business, the firm being owner of a large tannery. He was born in Milwaukee, April 11. 1880, a son of Fred and Louise F. (Pfister) Vogel. His educational opportunities in early youth were those afforded by the public schools of this city and later he entered the State University at Madison, from which he was graduated with the class of 1902, being the first to complete the course in the School of Commerce. In 1904 he went to London, England, and was graduated from Harold's Institute in 1905, this being a technical college which greatly benefited him in supplementing the training which he had already received. When his course there was completed he returned to Milwaukee and became superintendent of the Bay View & Sheboygan ( Mich.) Tannery, continuing in business with that association until 1909, when he was made assistant general mana. ger, which position he continued to fill until 1912. He was then elected general manager and has continued to serve in this capacity. He closely studies every question bearing upon the condnet of the business and has been most careful in its control. He has ever
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recognized the fact that success is the attainment of maximum effort at a minimum expenditure of time, labor and material and thus he has carefully systematized his busi- ness and made each department contribute to the advancement of the whole.
During the World war Mr. Vogel was made chief of the upper leather section of the war industries board. He was also president of the tanners' council of America from October, 1918, until October, 1920, devoting his entire time to this work from October, 1918, until July, 1919, during which period he was stationed in Washington, D. C., and in New York, rendering most valuable aid to the country through his efficiency in that necessary field. Mr. Vogel is a member of the Milwaukee Club, the Milwaukee Athletic Club, the Wisconsin Club, the Milwaukee Country Club, the Town Club, University Club, the New York Club and the Boston Athletic Club. He has become widely known through business and social relations not only in his native city but in the east as well and he has an extensive circle of warm friends in various cities along the Atlantic seaboard among men who recognize his superior business ability and his splendid quali- ties of manhood and citizenship.
LAMBERT J. HARGARTEN, M. D.
Dr. Lambert J. Hargarten, who since 1904 has engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery in Milwaukee, was born in Germany on the 3d of November, 1872, his parents being Hubert and Anna Mary ( Hoffmann) Hargarten, both of whom were also natives of Germany. In that land the father engaged in teaching for several years. His wife died there in 1886 and in 1888 the father came with their children to the new world, establish- ing his home in the state of Iowa, where he lived retired until his death in 1892. The family numbered four children: Nicholas, a well known insurance man of Milwaukee; Lambert J .; William Frederick, a druggist of Canada; and Mary, the wife of Frank Ernzen of Chicago.
At the usual age Dr. Hargarten began his education in the schools of Germany and after coming to America with his father he continued his education as a student in the Woodbine Normal School of Iowa. He, too, took up the profession of teaching but re- garded this merely as an initial step to other professional labor, as it was his desire to become a member of the medical profession. With this end in view he matriculated in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Milwaukee and was graduated from that institution as a member of the class of 1904. The same year he entered upon active practice in this city and as time has passed his practice has steadily increased in volume and importance. For a considerable period he has now ranked with the leading physicians of the city, at all times diagnosing his cases with great care and precision, while with notable accuracy he applies the principles of medical science to specific needs.
On the 17th of Angust, 1897. Dr. Hargarten was married to Miss Antonia Flusche, a native of Iowa, being the first white child born in Westphalia township, Shelby county, that state. She is a daughter of Dr. Carl J. and Clara (Feldman) Flusche, the latter the daughter of a prominent physician of Germany. Dr. and Mrs. Hargarten have become parents of seven children: Clara, Eleanor, Leo, Anton Francis, Marie, Lambert, Jr., and Lawrence.
The religious faith of the family is that of the Roman Catholic church and Dr. Har- garten is also identified with the Catholic Order of Foresters, the Knights of Columbus and the Catholic Knights of Wisconsin. In politics he is independent. Along profes- sional lines he is associated with the Milwaukee County Medical Society, the Wisconsin State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. His practice claims the major part of his time and attention and his constantly developing powers and increas- ing ability have brought him to a most creditable position as a representative of the medical profession in the Badger state.
NIELS A. CHRISTENSEN.
Man is not judged so much by what he accumulates as by what has been his con- tribution to the world's work. In this connection, therefore, Niels A. Christensen is de- serving of extended and prominent mention, for he is the inventor of the only successful air brake, a device which is now in general use on all electrically propelled cars and trains operated on the third-rail principle. The value of his service to the world can scarcely be overestimated and he deserves most prominent mention among the leading and honored residents of Milwaukee.
Mr. Christensen is of Danish birth. He was born in Toerring. Jutland, on the 16th of August, 1865, and is a representative of one of the old and honored families of Den- mark, living on the same estate for more than three hundred years. His father,
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Christen Jensen, was born at Toerring, February 5, 1829, and throughout his life oc- cupied the old family estate. He was a royalist in politics and served as an officer in the Danish army during the Schleswig-Holstein war between Germany and Austria in 1849-50, while in 1864-5 he participated in a number of important battles. His religious faith was that of the Lutheran church. He married Ane Marie Nielsen, who was born May 15, 1834, at Tudvad, Jutland, Denmark. Her father was a country gentleman and army officer, who served his king during the Napoleonic wars in the first years of the Nineteenth century. Mrs. Christensen passed away at the family estate in Toerring, November 15, 1876.
Niels A. Christensen became a practical machinist, as well as a mechanical engineer and naval constructor. As a boy he was always working with tools in the blacksmith and wheelwright shops on his father's estate and scarcely ever indulged in the ordinary sports and pastimes which usually engage youthful attention. He built elaborate toys for himself and his companions in the shape of windmills, waterwheels, stean engines and electrical apparatus, which won him wide fame. One of his windmills was built on a scale large enough to produce considerable power and a novel endless rope transmis- sion was used which he afterward found to conform exactly in principle to that method of transmission generally used in large cotton mills and places in which steam engines were employed previous to the installation of electric power. When a youth of eighteen he had completed a four years' apprenticeship and had become a journeyman machinist and pattern maker. Study in the evening schools after leaving the day schools enabled him to gain a most comprehensive knowledge of mathematics and applied mechanics. He was afterward employed in the Royal Danish navy and graduated as a constructor and naval machinist at the age of twenty-one. During this period he worked out drawings and details of the machinery for what was tben a fast cruiser, the Valkyrien of the Royal Danish navy, a ship that was the first to arrive at Martinique after the terrible catastrophe caused by the eruption of Mount Pelee. After completing his naval service he obtained leave of absence with a money prize granted by the minister of the interior to students who had shown marked efficiency, both in theory and practice. He utilized this prize money in paying his travel expenses abroad in search of further knowledge. Going to England, he became third assistant engineer on a large steamer in the Mediterranean and Black Sea trade. Some months later he returned to London on the same ship and was then made designer with one of the large English engineering works, engaged in marine engineering and the building of cotton, hydraulic, sugar, waterworks and other diversified lines of machinery. In this position he had charge of the machinery and layout for the waterworks for the city of Calcutta, India, and subse- quently engaged in the work of developing apparatus for commercializing and concen- trating nitrate of soda from the large beds in Chile, South America, owned by Colonel North. While thus engaged he gained valuable experience concerning all the different kinds of machinery manufactured by the firm.
Attracted by the business opportunities of the new world Mr. Christensen arrived in Chicago in 1891 and soon secured a position as designer with the firm of Frazer & Chalmers, which he afterward represented as commercial correspondent and selling engineer. In 1892 as the result of study and experiment he designed and patented his first air brake, entering upon this task after witnessing a fatal accident on one of the electric cars in Chicago. The financial panic of 1893 prevented him from carrying on practical work in connection with the patenting and the building of the air brake. After leaving the firm of Frazer & Chalmers in 1893 he worked on apparatus for dredg- ing and excavating the drainage canal but the firm engaged in that task did not have sufficient funds to complete the work. In the summer of 1894 Mr. Christensen accepted the position of assistant to the superintendent of the Edward P. Allis Company and in that capacity had charge of power house construction and blowing engines. He developed a new type of blowing engine, which is now uniformly used in all the great steel mills of the United States and in many establishments of the kind abroad. These blowing engines obviated many of the drawbacks and uncertainties of blast and Bessemer furnace operations. In the meantime he was continuing his work with the air brake, which was first put to practical use in April, 1893, on two of the cars on the Jefferson avenue line in Detroit, where it was pronounced a success, the tests being carried out by officials of the Citizens Street Railway Company of Detroit. Nothwthstanding the success of the device which was demonstrated, money was not forthcoming to finance the enterprise of manufacturing the brake, so that Mr. Christensen continued to work for the Edward P. Allis Company until February, 1896. Prior to that date two cars had been equipped with the Christensen air brake on the Milwaukee street railway system, where the test of the device proved eminently satisfactory, so that the first Christensen Engineering Company was formed in the early part of 1897, while in the meantime a large amount of preliminary work was done in the way of test equipment and some actual orders had been secured and filled. In August, 1897, after four other companies had failed to supply even satisfactory test apparatus for the South Side Elevated Rail- road of Chicago the contract for the entire air brake system was awarded to the Christensen Engineering Company, not only as the result of the actual test of the appar- Vol. III-55
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tus put on cars of its line but also on account of the splendid showing of the apparatus that had been made on test cars of the Metropolitan Elevated Company, which was the first electric heavy train service in Chicago, thus supplanting the devices of another air brake company previously installed. In this connection a contemporary writer has said: "The problems in connection with the service on the cars of the South Side Elevated Railroad were exceptionally severe, since they involved pioneer work in the true sense of the term. The system of propelling the cars was new in that each car in the train was in itself a completely equipped motor car, and capable of independent operation under what was known as the 'multiple unit system.' When the unit motor cars were coupled together in a train, the whole train of motors operated as a unit, being controlled from one point, namely the driver's cab in front. The electric part of the propelling equipment was worked out by Mr. Frank J. Sprague, one of the pioneers in electric railway traction. The air brake equipment to meet this kind of service was worked out by N. A. Christensen and was the foundation for the permanent success of the Christensen apparatus. Some of the incidents and experiences in that pioneer era of electric railway work would form an entertaining volume. The fame of the apparatus spread far and wide, though of course it was appreciated by those interested in technical matters, and the average person riding on such a train had not the faintest idea of the intricacies which it had been necessary to master in order to provide the service.
"Subsequently the Christensen air brake came to be recognized as the necessary equipment on all first class modern electric railway, whether in the city, suburb or internrban. As a result of his experiment and invention, there is practically no limit to the weight of a car or train nor to its speed, since the brake keeps under perfect control the heaviest as well as the lightest train. Thus a new era was opened in the development of electric traction, since up to that time speed and weight had been limited because of the difficulty of controlling the cars by hand brakes or by the unreliable electric brake which had been advocated and put on cars by the companies making electric railway apparatus. The Christensen apparatus in time superseded all other forms of brakes. The last electric brakes on any large scale were replaced by the Christensen appliances for the Pan-American service on the Buffalo and International Railroad at Buffalo, New York, in 1901. Something like five hundred sets of electric brakes were removed from the cars, and a like amount of Christensen apparatus put in their place.
"The business from the summer of 1897 grew in leaps and bounds and when the large electric manufacturing companies realized that the air brake as developed by N. A. Christensen was the only practical and safe device used, they discontinued selling elec- tric brake apparatus, except in cases where they themselves financed the railway companies.
"As has been true in so many cases, history repeated itself. The Christensen Engineering Company had a hard and constant fight to prevent infringement of its patent and had to contest every inch of its progress against the great companies mann- facturing other electric apparatus. But in spite of the influence of great capital and of shrewd, if not treacherous, business and legal methods, the Christensen apparatus in time became recognized as the standard in all parts of the civilized country where elec- tric traction is used. The Christensen appliances were adopted as a standard by the government tramways of Sydney, N. S. W., and other Australian cities. It was adopted as a standard on the surface and underground lines of Paris, France, and many other French cities. It was adopted on nearly all the electric railways of Italy, and some in Germany, Norway, Sweden, Russia, Canada, Mexico, South American republics, China, Japan, South Africa, and of course, in England, where the entire system of the metro- politan underground and other underground electric roads were equipped with Christen- sen apparatus.
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