Bio: Kiefer, John (1845 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Kiefer, Smith, Paff, Tank, Jones, Crenshaw, Bloss, Wickman, Rugg

----Source: History of Marathon County Wisconsin and Representative Citizens, by Louis Marchetti, 1913.

Kiefer, John (7 June 1845 - 19??)

John Kiefer, president of the John Kiefer Furniture Company and also president of the John Kiefer Produce and Creamery Company, is a representative business man of Wausau, of which city he has been a resident for forty-four years. He was born in Hesse Darmstadt, Germany, June 7, 1845, and is a son of Conrad and Annie (Smith) Kiefer.

John Kiefer was reared and educated in Germany, being twenty-three years of age when he landed on Staten Island, in the harbor of New York. In 1868 he reached Toledo, O., and in August, 1869, came to Wausau. As his trade was shoemaking, he opened a shoe shop and shoe store, being located in the J. Paff Bldg. and continued until 1876, when he sold out and in partnership with Jacob Paff built a tannery, with which he remained connected until 1878. In that year he embarked in a general mercantile business and carried it on until 1902, when he sold and went into the cold storage line, having built a storage plant in 1899. He has remained interested in the cold storage business until the present, giving it a share of his attention for he has additional interests. In 1907 he purchased a milk plant known as the Marathon County Creamery and manufactures ice cream, and owns also the John Kiefer Furniture Company. This enterprise was started in 1905 by the Wausau Furniture Company, in 1907 the present style being adopted. Mr. Kiefer takes justifiable pride in the fact that he has progressed in business entirely through his own unassisted efforts, in fact is a self made man.

In 1871 Mr. Kiefer was married to Miss Bettie Tank, a daughter of O. G. Tank, of Wausau. They have had nine children, six of whom survive: Annie, who is the wife of B. F. Jones, of Oconomowoc; John L., who is secretary and treasurer of the Kiefer Bros. Produce Co., married Miss Jessie Crenshaw; Bertha I.illie, who is the wife of Don Bloss, proprietor of a fruit store at Wausau; Clara, who is the wife of Fred Wickman, a druggist, at Wausau; Otto, who conducts the furniture store for his father, married Miss Rugg, of Rochester, N. Y.; and Harry, who is interested in the produce business. In politics Mr. Kiefer and sons are Democrats. He is serving as supervisor of the Fifth Ward. With his family he belongs to St. Paul's Lutheran Church at Wausau.