Julius Wechselberg

Julius Wechselberg (March 9, 1838 - May 17, 1924) was an American carriage maker, lawyer, real estate broker and politician who spent one term as a Republican member of the Wisconsin State Senate's Sixth District (the 5th, 8th, 11th and 12 Wards of the city of Milwaukee, and the towns of Franklin, Greenfield, Lake and Oak Creek in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. He was followed in office by Herman Kroeger.

Background

Wechselberg was born in Barmen in the Rhine Province of the Kingdom of Prussia on March 9, 1838, and came to Wisconsin with his parents in 1848 (his father did not want his sons to be conscripted into the Prussian Army). The family initially lived in a log cabin in the Town of Lake. He received a common school and commercial education, and settled at Milwaukee, where he first went to work for a carriage maker at a salary of $30 a year (plus board). He later established the Thos. H. Brown carriage manufacturing works in 1861; he was in the carriage manufacturing business until 1879, then became a real estate dealer. Wechselberg went on to develop what is now the North Grant Boulevard Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Public office

Wechselberg was alderman of his ward from 1872–1876, and was then elected clerk of circuit court of Milwaukee County, serving from 1877 to 1883; during this period, he studied law and became an attorney. He declined re-nomination in 1882 to devote more time to his real estate business.

He was elected state senator for four years in 1884, unseating Democratic incumbent Enoch Chase, with 5,512 votes for Wechselberg, to 4,642 for Chase and 64 for Prohibitionist Julius Cheyne. He was assigned to the standing committee on privileges and elections, and to the joint committee on printing.[1] In the next session he was chairman of the committee on finance, banks, and insurance, and was also assigned to the committee on engrossed bills.[2] He did not run for re-election in 1888, and was succeeded in office by Herman Kroeger, who was elected as a nominal Democrat but changed his party affiliation to Union Labor (the party which had almost elected him as Mayor of Milwaukee earlier that year). In 1892, Wechselberg was the Republican nominee for Congress from the Fifth District, losing to Democratic incumbent George Brickner due to Brickner's margins in the portions of the district outside Milwaukee County.[3]

He was an alternate delegate to the 1916 Republican National Convention.

After political office

He was described in a 1922 Milwaukee Telegram article as "the oldest realtor in Milwaukee", as well as the oldest member and dean of past masters of the Kilbourn Masonic Lodge (the oldest in Milwaukee).[4]

He died May 17, 1924, and is buried in Forest Home Cemetery.[5]

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References
  1. Heg, James E., ed. The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin. Comprising the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of Wisconsin, Jefferson's Manual, Forms and Laws for the Regulation of Business; also lists and tables for reference, etc. Twenty-Third Volume; Madison: Democrat Printing Co., State Printers, 1885; pp. 420, 451, 453
  2. Timme, Ernst G., ed. The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin 1887 Madison, 1887; pp. 472, 485
  3. Cunningham, Thomas J., ed. The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin 1893 Madison, 1893; p. 275
  4. "Old Settlers Tell of Pioneer Days in Milwaukee" Milwaukee Telegram July 23, 1922
  5. Find-a-Grave listing, with photos
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