Bio: Scharbau, Louis (1860 - 19??)

Contact: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

Surnames: Scharbau, Zell

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

---Scharbau, Louis (21 May 1860 - 19??)

LOUIS SCHARBAU, president of the Scharbau Land, Lumber & Mining Company, and of the Iron Range Timber Company, important business concerns of Wausau, Wis., is one of the prominent and forceful men of this section, and has been identified with the timber and land business for twenty-three years. He was born in the city of Hamburg, Germany, May 21, 1860, a son of Johann Ludwig Dominicus Scharbau and wife, the head of whose branch, Ludwig Christorer Dominicus Scharbau von Scharbautz, left Scharbautz in the year 1583.  

Louis Scharbau was reared in a comfortable home by careful parents and was given good educational advantages, including attendance at a high school and also a technical school in his native land. Having acquired the knowledge of civil engineering he followed that profession for awhile in his native land. In 1883 he came to America, settling at once in Wisconsin. After a short period spent at Milwaukee he came to the more northern part of the state and embarked in the saw mill business and in merchandising. He operated a mill and store in Gillette and another mill seven miles from Cecil, Wisconsin. He continued in business at Gillette until 1898, when he came to Wausau, since which time he has given his attention largely to the timber business, and his personal dealings in both farm and timber lands are extensive. He is a man of wide business experience and his operations are acknowledged factors in the commercial life of Northern Wisconsin.

In 1890 Mr. Scharbau was married to Miss Hulda Zell, and they have two sons, Harold and Kurt, who are students in St. John's Military Academy. Mr. Scharbau has twice visited Europe since he first crossed the Atlantic, and on the last trip, in the spring of 1912, he was accompanied by his wife. Together they visited the old home in Germany, also Paris, and extended their travels as far as St. Petersburg, Russia.